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THE TOWER OF DAVID 



THE 

TOWER OF DAVID 

A BOOK OF STORIES FOR THE PRO¬ 
GRAM OF WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS 


BY 

ELMA EHRLICH LEVINGER 

AUTHOR OF “JEWISH FESTIVALS IN THE RELIGIOUS SCHOOL,” 
“JEWISH HOLYDAY STORIES,” “THE NEW LAND,” “jEPHTHA^S 
DAUGHTER,” “iN MANY LANDS,” ETC. 



Published for the 

National Council of Jewish Women 


NEW YORK 

BLOCH PUBLISHING COMPANY 

“THE JEWISH BOOK CONCERN” 
1924 




Copyrighted, 1924, by 

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN 


DEC 27-1924 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


© Cl A814.966 


MRS. JAMES N. GINNS 


FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE WILMING¬ 
TON SECTION, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH 
WOMEN, LOYAL WORKER AND FAITHFUL FRIEND, 
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 




THE TOWER OF DAVID 

This is the tower that Roman Titus spared, 

When the walls crumbled, and the hungry fire 

Consumed the holy Dwelling of our Godj 

And vanquished Israel wept above the funeral pyre. 

“Of all the towers in high JerusalemV 
He said, “let this one battlement remain. 

That all the world in far-off centuries 

May know what stubborn walls my warriors died to gain.” 

hong vanquished lies the iron race of Rome; 

Their dust blots out the story of their wars; 

But Israel steadfast and unshattered stands 

Like David's Tower, firm beneath the changeless stars. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Poem: The Tower of David 
PART I 

STORIES FOR THE PROGRAM 

PAGE 

The Mother with Nothing to Give ... 13 

Telling About an Ultra-Modern Jewess 

A Succoth Table. 21 

How Customs and Furniture Grow Old-Fash¬ 
ioned 

Vivian Gets a Booking.28 

A Glimpse of Life and Love Behind the Scenes 

More than Bread.39 

All About an Amateur Social Worker and the 
Movies 

The Two-Edged Sword.49 

A Tale of the Time of the Maccabees 

In the Rabbi’s Study.57 

A Series of Thumb-nail Sketches 

“Eight O’Clock Sharp!”.78 

A Dramatic Skit in One Scene 

Unhallowed Candles.86 

The Story of a Modern Sabbath 

Stairs.92 

The Tragedy of an Immigrant 
7 







PAGI 


8 TABLE OF CONTENTS 

A Day in Shushan.99 

Telling of the Aftermath of Queen Esther’s 
Heroism 

“A Star—for a Night”.106 

A Purim Reminiscence 

Patchwork.115 

A Social Study 

Birds of a Feather.124 

An Adventure of a Converted Jewess 

A Son of Pharaoh.132 

A Minor Tragedy of the Exodus 

Dawn Through the Darkness . . . . 139 

The Story of a Russian Passover 

Twenty Years After.144 

When is the Jew Welcome? 

A Cemetery Jew ....... ..151 

The Queer Fate of a Jewish Skeptic 

The Return of Akiba.158 

An Idyl for Lag B’omer 

Intermarriage.165 

A New Twist to an Old Problem 

A Mother of Bethlehem.175 

A Story for Shabuoth 

PART II 

THE STORY AND THE LITERARY PROGRAM 

1. Selection and Preparation of the Story 185 

2. How to Plan the Program.193 

3. Model Programs.197 

4. Bibliography of Readings for the Pro¬ 

gram .199 













PREFACE 


The purpose of this volume is to furnish material 
suitable for programs for women’s organizations 
throughout the year and to assist those in charge in 
the preparation of such programs. The importance of 
the story in the literary program is developed at length 
in Part II of this book. The need for short stories 
which may be used as an integral part of the program 
justifies the publication of this and similar books for 
women readers; there is a woeful scarcity of stories 
dealing with the life and problems of the American 
Jewess; if these stories of mine, Jewish in sympathy 
and background, short and simple enough to be read as 
part of such programs, do something to fill this need, I 
am satisfied. 

While preparing this volume, I have been encour¬ 
aged and assisted by our National President, Miss Rose 
Brenner, our Executive Secretary, Mrs. Estelle Stern- 
berger, and our newly appointed National Chairman 
of the Committee on Religion, Mrs. Edwin Zugsmith, 
whom I cannot thank heartily enough for their co¬ 
operation. 

Elma Ehrlich Levinger. 

Wilmington, Del., July, 1924. 



PART I 

STORIES FOR THE PROGRAM 



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PART I 


THE MOTHER WITH NOTHING 
TO GIVE 

Telling About an Ultra-Modern Jewess 

T HE lecturer, young, enthusiastic, vibrant, gazed 
into the faces of the women who made up her 
audience. Members of the local Council and their 
guests, they represented the best their small-town 
Jewry had to offer both in wealth and culture. They 
tried to be both cosmopolitan and liberal in their pro¬ 
grams; the last month they had listened to a college 
professor from up-state talk on Tagore and his poetry; 
the following meeting was to be given over to a lecture 
by a member of the local school board on Vocational 
Guidance in the Upper Grades; Miss Frank, wedged 
in between the two, did her best to enlighten her 
listeners on the subject of “A Jewish Background in 
the Home.” 

She made her points rapidly and well: the difficulty 
of giving a thoroughly Jewish training to the children 
in an American modern home; the need of Jewish 
books, pictures, music; the observance of the Jewish 
holy days. Hannah had never spoken better, yet today 
she felt strangely dull and discouraged; true, the women 
of the Council gave her the polite attention that good 
breeding demands, but she felt that she had left them 
cold and untouched. Nor did any of the prettily 
phrased compliments that the members murmured over 
13 


14 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


their cups of coffee afterwards make her feel that she 
had succeeded. 

A little woman pushed her way through the crowd 
which had gathered about Hannah Frank, a chic young 
person whom she recognized as one of the committee 
who had met her at the train. She was birdlike and 
quick in her movements; almost incoherent in her 
rapid, fluttering speech. Miss Frank, who in her 
travels for the Council met many people and prided 
herself upon being an excellent judge of human nature, 
labeled her tersely as “frothy but rather intelligent.” 

“I’m Mrs. Toleman,” she announced gayly. “Now 
don’t pretend you remembered my name. I know I 
never could, meeting so many strange people at once. 
Well, you’re going to have dinner at our place, so sup¬ 
pose we run away now, ’cause you ought to have a little 
rest first. You must be ready to drop after your trip 
and such a long lecture.” 

She led Hannah after her through the crowd, the 
short stiff skirts of her taffeta afternoon dress swishing 
with importance. Hannah, severely tailor-made and 
inclined to be stout, followed the lithe, golden-haired 
little person rather amusedly, for she felt exactly like 
a solid ocean liner drawn by a puffing tug. But she 
would have been glad to escape from the over-heated 
vestry room and the babel of voices even if her guide 
had been far more objectionable. 

In the smart little car which she drove with practiced 
skill, young Mrs. Toleman kept up a perfect stream of 
bright patter. Had Miss Frank enjoyed her trip, 
wasn’t the weather mild for November, did she make 
up her perfectly lovely lecture as she went along, or 
write it out first and then say it off by heart? And 


THE MOTHER WITH NOTHING TO GIVE 15 


Hannah, answering all her questions with smiling polite¬ 
ness, began to wonder how soon she could respectably 
make her escape after dinner. She didn’t expect to be 
as lonely “in that dreadful hotel room” as Mrs. Tole- 
man anticipated; a warm bath, kimono and a book 
seemed at that moment much more inviting than a com¬ 
pany dinner table across from her chattering little 
hostess. 

Left alone in the pretty little living room, Hannah 
nodded with an “I-told-you-so” air, looking curiously 
about her, while Mrs. Toleman ran upstairs to see 
whether Junior was still awake and on view to visitors. 
It had always been Hannah’s pet theory that houses 
expressed their owner’s personality; now she felt that 
the cozy, smartly appointed room justified her belief. 
The furniture, the curtains, the rugs were all in the best 
of taste, “a bride’s dream of a home,” as Hannah 
phrased it with an ironic smile. There were softly 
shaded lamps and several brass bowls filled with 
warmly crimson roses; the gas logs gave a cheery, 
hospitable look to the great armchairs drawn up at 
just the right angle to the fireplace. Everything that 
money could buy—but not the personal touch that 
invests the most worn furniture and shabbiest carpets 
with a potent grace. For, as Hannah’s sharp eyes 
noticed, the pictures in their very correct frames had 
no more character than the display rooms of the art 
department of a furniture store—all the old favorites, 
Girl and the Muff, the Flower Market, even 
the Soul’s Awakening; upon the rack of the baby 
grand stood several sheets of music, the latest things in 
jazz; there were books, to be sure, in the built-in book¬ 
cases, handsomely bound sets of Dickens and Mark 


16 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Twain and the World’s Best Short Stories, but Hannah 
felt sure they were never opened, they looked so un¬ 
friendly in their prim rows. And books stood between 
the correct bookends on the davenport table (replicas 
of Rodin’s “Thinker,” done in bronze!) but they were 
all best sellers, ranging geographically from Main 
Street to the South Sea Islands. . . . Hannah shrugged 
hopelessly and her face grew very tired. What was the 
use of talking to women whose lives and religion, like 
their homes, were just impersonal copies of their 
neighbors’? 

But Hannah brightened up a good deal in the nurs¬ 
ery, where Mrs. Toleman led her after an interview 
with the white-capped nurse. For Junior, just tucked 
into his ivory crib, was an adorable bundle of pink flesh 
with his mother’s sunny curls. Hannah loved babies 
and it was only her awe of the stiffly correct nurse 
that kept her from tossing the youngster in a forbidden 
bedtime romp. Her eyes were very gentle as she fol¬ 
lowed her hostess from the nursery. 

“You like babies!” commented the little lady as they 
sat basking in the light of the gas logs. “I’m just crazy 
over Junior, but that nasty old nurse won’t let me 
hardly touch him. I’ll be glad when he’s old enough 
to go to kindergarten and I can have him all to myself 
between times.” Her childish face grew very thought¬ 
ful in the rosy firelight. “It’s a big responsibility hav¬ 
ing babies, even if you can have a good nurse for their 
bottles and send for a specialist every time they cough. 
I never knew how many other important things you had 
to think about besides giving them the right things to 
eat and keeping them clean and warm. Why, when 
you gave your perfectly lovely talk this afternoon-” 



THE MOTHER WITH NOTHING TO GIVE 17 

Hannah bit her lip with vexation. One of the most 
unpleasant features of her work was this post-mortem 
gushing by empty-headed listeners. Why didn’t Mrs. 
Toleman stick to her more becoming role of devoted 
young mother which suited her so admirably? 

“When I heard you telling us to have Jewish homes 
this afternoon,” went on the little lady in the opposite 
chair, “I thought of this,” waving one of her beringed 
hands toward the carefully selected background. “I 
felt ashamed when you said that if you went up a street 
in one of our fashionable suburbs, you couldn’t tell a 
Jewish home from most of the gentile houses in the 
block. Unless the gentiles happened to be good Protes¬ 
tants or Catholics and had a few books or pictures 
around to let you know they weren’t Jews! And I 
knew you were right. I never had much time for seri¬ 
ous thinking, anyhow. First it was high school and 
then a year away at Miss Peatson’s Finishing School 
and then I came home to get married. Joe’s an old 
dear, but he’s not any more Jewish than I am. I guess 
he’s worse, but it doesn’t make so much difference with 
him; you don’t expect men to be awfully religious, 
do you? 

“And it didn’t make any difference until Junior came. 
But now I know I want him to have some religion when 
he grows up—not just sort of drift along the way his 
father and I do; go to Temple to say Kaddish twice a 
year and in the fall for the holidays. We haven’t so 
terribly many Jews in this town and when he grows 
up, he’ll marry a girl who isn’t Jewish and it’ll about 
kill me! I know you think I’m silly,” as Hannah 
smiled at her earnestness, “but if you ever have chil¬ 
dren you’ll know how a woman gets jealous of her 


18 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


daughter-in-law the minute the boy’s born. And I 
don’t know why I should care if Junior doesn’t stay 
Jewish—but I will. I guess it’s just born in us—we 
want to have our children stay Jews.” 

She was silent for a moment, gazing into the flames. 
“You asked us mothers to bring up our children like 
Jews,” she went on thoughtfully. “But did you know 
how impossible it was for some of us? When we aren’t 
Jews ourselves in anything but name. It’s not always 
our fault either. My mother was an American and 
brought up in a small town where there wasn’t a Temple 
or a Jewish Sunday school; her mother was born in 
this country, too, and wasn’t especially Jewish. You 
tell us to give our children Jewish homes—but some of 
us have nothing Jewish to give.” 

Hannah leaned toward her, all the satire gone from 
her eyes. “You can read,” she suggested, “study about 
Judaism—” but her hostess interrupted her rather 
rudely. 

“You can’t get much out of books,” she answered 
fiercely. “You’ve got to just feel these things—and be¬ 
lieve them—if you want to make your children believe 
in them, too. You wouldn’t want Miss Brent, our 
Protestant head-librarian to teach a Sunday school 
class for us, would you, and she’s terrible brainy and 
could read up all you wanted her to know just that 
quick. But she isn’t Jewish inside. It’s the mother’s 
work, just as you said this afternoon, but I can’t do it. 
And I’m sorry.” 

Her voice had grown almost bitter, but now it rose 
lilting and birdlike again. “There’s Joe’s latchkey in 
the door,” she exclaimed. “Now we can have supper. 
I know you’re almost starved.” 


THE MOTHER WITH NOTHING TO GIVE 19 


Almost thirty years later, Hannah Frank still lec¬ 
turing for the Council, a little stouter, a little more 
satiric and sharp in her judgments, met Mrs. Toleman 
again. The Tolemans had just moved to Buffalo 
whither Hannah had journeyed to give a talk for a state 
federation meeting. Again she stood surrounded by 
noisy admirers, when the little lady, no longer young, 
but still charmingly lithe and childish, bore down upon 
her and carried her home for dinner. 

“Fm so sorry my boy isn’t home,” she mourned. 
“Yes, he’s married—a lovely girl; I wish you could 
meet her. They live with us but just now he’s in New 
York on a business trip for his father and she went 
along to visit her people. We’re just foolish over 
Miriam.” 

The meeting had lasted late into the afternoon, after 
the manner of many convention meetings; in fact, the 
late dull December day had already deepened into twi¬ 
light when the two women entered the apartment where 
the Tolemans now made their home. 

“I hear Joe in the dining room now,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Toleman. “We must be dreadfully late. Friday night, 
too! Would you mind just dropping your wraps in the 
hall and coming right in to dinner?” 

A moment later the two women stood before the din¬ 
ner table, tempting in its display of shining linen, glass¬ 
ware and silver. Hannah raised her eyebrows inquir¬ 
ingly as her glance fell upon two large silver candle¬ 
sticks upon the buffet. For they held two tall white 
candles, not the ornamental, twisted sort, but the kind 
her own mother had always lit and blessed for the Sab¬ 
bath. And her astonishment grew as the dainty little 
woman, her curls just touched with gray, after a hasty 


20 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


greeting to her husband, stood before them and self¬ 
consciously but correctly repeated the old, old blessing 
over the lights. 

Hannah felt that wonders would never cease when 
Joe Toleman read a short Kiddush service, in English, 
of course, but with the air of a man who is used to at 
least a short service at his table on Sabbath eve. Miss 
Frank longed to ask questions, but tactfully waited 
until the maid disappeared after serving the soup, 
when Mrs. Toleman with characteristic impatience fore¬ 
stalled her. 

“It’s all Miriam’s fault,” she explained. “I know 
you’re dying to know how it all happened when we 
used to be so terrible back home. Well,” flushing a 
little, “'I was wild when my boy told me he was en¬ 
gaged to marry a girl he’d met on one of his buying 
trips. He said her parents were foreigners and awfully 
religious; I thought they must be the sort of Jews I 
was brought up to make fun of. But I was sort of re¬ 
lieved, too; he wasn’t at all Jewish himself and he’d 
been going with gentiles all his life and I was afraid 
he’d marry one of ’em. 

“Well, you just ought to know Miriam! She’s a col¬ 
lege graduate and awfully up to date, but she’s relig¬ 
ious, too. She wouldn’t come here to live until we had 
what she calls a Jewish home—Friday night and all 
that sort of thing. And she made me learn that bless¬ 
ing because she said she didn’t feel right saying it here 
when it was my home. Well,” smiling, “we’re awfully 
anxious to please her; especially now when there’s a 
baby coming in the spring. And I know Miriam’s 
going to bring it up a good Jew—she’ll have so much 
to give it.” 


A SUCCOTH TABLE 

How Customs and Furniture Grow Old-Fashioned 

0 HENRY—so runs one of the many legends of 
* that prince of story writers—once declared that 
he could spin a yarn about any object under the sun. 
His friend laughingly flipped a menu card across the 
restaurant table. O. Henry immediately accepted the 
challenge and at once turned out the tale of the girl 
who typed menu sheets for a cheap New York restau¬ 
rant. A legend which I recalled when we passed a 
rather pretentious bungalow on our street last summer 
and my companion pointed out a table upon the porch. 

“If you can write one of your sob-stories about that 
horror with the carved legs and the oilcloth covering” 
—he challenged. 

“Sob-stuff—nonsense!” I retorted. “I never write 
sob-sister stuff unless I have to. And this time I don’t. 
For I sense a perfectly matter-of-fact, every-day story 
in that old piece of furniture. And I’ll write it the 
minute we get back from our swim.” 

Which I did. You may read it if you want to—for 
it isn’t sob-stuff. 

In a little town in Poland—the feet of opposing 
armies have long since ground it into the earth, so why 
trouble to find out its name?—a wedding was always a 
time for great rejoicing. These poverty-bitten Jews 
had few enough festivities and little chance for merri- 


21 


22 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


ment. So whenever the maimed or the deformed mar¬ 
ried, or a poverty-stricken young couple who immedi¬ 
ately went to live with the bride’s equally poverty- 
stricken parents, there was much gayety and rejoicing 
and good wishes. While such a marriage as that of 
young Raphael and Malka, the innkeeper’s daughter, 
the groom a scholar of promise, the bride with a dowry 
almost as attractive as her face, was an occasion for 
double rejoicing. “Massel tov!” cried the guests and 
for once they expected all their pious wishes for the 
fortunate pair to be fulfilled. 

When Raphael and his bride came to America a 
few years later, the girl-wife soon learned that it was 
one thing to be the petted, only daughter of the richest 
man in the community, another to try to make ends 
meet on the wages of a pants-operator. Raphael, for 
all his reputation for Talmudic learning, was some¬ 
thing of a schlemiel in the ways of the world, and often 
his growing family went hungry to bed. It was during 
this period, when the third baby was cutting its teeth 
and fretting a good deal over the process, that he 
bought the kitchen table. 

Malka shrieked with rage when she saw it, for it 
filled a good half of the dingy kitchen in their east- 
side tenement, and there was no space for it in any of 
the other three rooms. 

“Didn’t I tell you just a small table to stick in a 
corner and cut my noodles on and maybe we eat to¬ 
gether on it on Shabbas? A table like that is big 
enough for a family of ten children, God forbid, and 
people who live in those big stone houses on the 
Avenue.” 

“In time we may be blessed with ten children and 


A SUCCOTH TABLE 


23 


then it will not be too small,” answered Raphael the 
philosopher. “And in time I will be a rich man and we 
will live in a grand house on the Avenue and have 
room for a dozen big tables if we want them. Besides, I 
got this one very cheap—for the price of a little table— 
so why should I take a little one? And see the grand 
carving on the legs.” 

“May your legs be twisted like those for a hundred 
years,” muttered his wife spitefully. But she ceased 
arguing for she knew that under her husband’s gentle 
demeanor was an iron stubbornness. The Talmud 
scholar had a tenacity of purpose which with his in¬ 
tellect should have brought him plenty of material re¬ 
wards; but since he was cursed with a certain fine 
idealism, a dreamy mysticism, he came dangerously 
close to dying a poor man. 

Perhaps the years of their poverty up in their tene¬ 
ment kitchen were the happiest the couple were ever to 
experience. To be sure, Malka’s tongue sharpened as 
her figure lost its pretty slimness and her skin coars¬ 
ened; Raphael’s shoulders stooped and he more than 
once felt the prick of wounded pride as his wit showed 
itself less keen than of old, when on Saturday after¬ 
noons he indulged in long Talmudic discussions with 
certain cronies of his in the little synagogue around the 
corner. Sometimes there was only bread and herring 
to eat, not infrequently, during strike times, only bread. 
One baby died, but the other five thrived and grew as 
fat and rosy as though they had been reared in a nurs¬ 
ery on that mystical street called the Avenue. It was 
a happy home although never a luxurious one. 

Perhaps at no time happier than on the Jewish fes¬ 
tivals when the family gathered about the long table 


24 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


with its quaintly carved legs, the legs now sadly defaced 
by Bennie’s first pocket knife and the baby’s teeth 
when Malka had mislaid its teething ring. On these 
festal occasions Malka brought out one of the treasured 
bits of linen she had brought over from “home” along 
with her two feather beds; the festive board was piled 
high with viands sometimes unknown from one yomtov 
to the next: shalets which made your mouth water just 
to smell them, soup and fowl and fish. Especially on 
Succoth when Raphael and his boys built a little lean- 
to on the roof, which, the weather permitting, served as 
a dining room for eight blessed days. 

There was never such a Succah, the children decided, 
gay with autumn leaves plucked on the outskirts of 
Bronx Park, whither they always journeyed as part of 
their Succoth pilgrimage, and fruits from the corner 
grocery which in strike times were merely rented for 
the occasion, since Raphael couldn’t buy oranges at 
eight cents apiece when he couldn’t afford milk for his 
famished brood. Yes, it was a merry group that gath¬ 
ered in the Succah, where rye bread and butter tasted 
like ambrosia because of the novel surroundings, a 
group which had expanded so rapidly that Malka no 
longer grumbled that the table was too large. 

Came a Succoth when Raphael and his wife missed 
two faces as the family gathered about the long table 
in the Succah the old gentleman had erected in the 
back yard. For by this time Bennie, once the bad boy 
of the family, had developed into a prosperous cloak 
and suit manufacturer, while his sister Rosie had made 
a marriage which caused their mother almost to purr 
whenever she thought about it. The other children 
were doing nicely, too, so Raphael was lifted almost 


A SUCCOTH TABLE 


25 


bodily out of his tailor-shop and Malka out of her 
kitchen; the flat in lower Harlem gave way to a neat 
little cottage in the suburbs ; Max, the youngest brother 
and unmarried, still lived at home and commuted. 

To do the children justice, they did not break the 
old home ties wantonly; they were all busy, self-inter¬ 
ested folks, but still they usually found time to pay an 
occasional visit to the parents they supported, espe¬ 
cially upon the Jewish holy days. But on this Succoth, 
Louie, the young doctor, was studying in Europe, and 
Esther, the baby sister, was too absorbed in one or an¬ 
other artists’ ball to be given near her Greenwich Vil¬ 
lage studio, to come home for the festival. The old 
folks said nothing before the other children; but when 
they were alone that night Malka shed a few bitter 
tears. 

“We will never all be together again,” she mourned. 

“Nu,” said her husband, philosophically, trying to 
jest as he always did when most moved, “nu, maybe 
you were right, Malka, and that table is going to be 
too big after all.” 

Malka’s tearful prophecy was a true one. During 
the year first one, then another of the children found 
some valid reason for being absent from the holiday 
gatherings. One could not blame Minnie for saying she 
couldn’t bring the baby out on the train for Chanukah 
and didn’t dare to leave it behind; a dinner for some 
out-of-town buyers kept Bennie away on Purim; and 
Leonard’s wife insisted upon running up to Atlantic 
City for the Easter vacation, so he couldn’t be expected 
to fill his accustomed place at the Seder. ... But they 
all managed to gather for their father’s funeral a few 
weeks after Passover. 


26 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Malka was more lonely than even she herself 
guessed. The first hard years of her married life had 
done much to rob her marriage of any romance; the 
old man for whom she grieved was very far removed 
from the dreamy youth who had wooed her “at home” 
years ago. But during the growing loneliness of her 
later years when her children had drifted this way and 
that—and always away from her!—she had learned to 
lean upon this almost alien husband and look to him for 
sympathy. The children told each other that “mamma 
would never get over it.” 

But by Succoth she seemed more like her old self 
again. Maxie couldn’t be depended upon to build the 
Succah, of course, but Malka with unexpected inde¬ 
pendence hired a local carpenter and supervised the job 
herself. She told Maxie rather shamefacedly that she 
had never been very religious herself, but that his poor 
papa selig had always insisted upon a Succah, and she 
thought they ought to keep on having one. She even 
ordered the trig little electric which Bennie had given 
her and went down to the market herself for the fruit 
and certain frills for the feast; which encouraged the 
children, for of late she had grown too listless to do her 
own marketing and they considered this a bad sign in 
mamma. 

I promised not to write a sob-story, so I won’t. The 
children came to the Succoth feast, every one of them, 
and Minnie even brought the one grandchild. None of 
the boys could read the Hebrew service which Raphael 
had always read for them, but they got along very 
nicely without it; and, although the laughter was some¬ 
times a little forced and the singing of the old hymns 
dragged a trifle, they all agreed it had been a very sue- 


A SUCCOTH TABLE 


27 


cessful Succoth party. And Malka, sitting at the head 
of the long old-fashioned table, a crushed little figure in 
her new black silk, tried to agree with them. 

The family never had a real reunion since. After 
Malka’s death Maxie, who had waited patiently for his 
own happiness, married a delightful young woman 
whom even the fastidious Minnie forgave for not being 
a Jewess. Maxie’s wife insisted upon a city apartment 
so the little house was sold along with all the furnish¬ 
ings except a few trifles which the young people kept 
for one reason or another, chiefly for sentiment. 

“And I’ll take the long table if nobody else wants it,” 
announced Anna, the second daughter. “It won’t bring 
anything at the sale, it’s so old-fashioned, but it’s just 
what I want on the porch out at our bungalow this 
summer for our card games on Saturday afternoons.” 


VIVIAN GETS A BOOKING 


A Glimpse of Life and Love Behind the Scenes 

M R. ABEL SCHWARTZ, turned fifty-odd years, 
rotund and jovial, leaned back in his swivel chair 
and surveyed the pair before him. He was holding 
court in the inner office of the “Schwartz Premier Book¬ 
ing Offices,” a dingy little room off an elevator shaft 
made beautiful to his eyes at least by the myriad of 
pictures that hung upon the dingy walls. There were 
a few colored costume plates among them, but 
they were chiefly portraits of various stage beauties, 
many of them rather unadorned, some simpering over 
huge feather fans, some severely statuesque in high- 
backed armchairs, others posing giddily upon one toe 
in the midst of a dance. And most of them were signed 
with a variety of scrawls to the same purport, that the 
writers would always remain the most affectionate 
friends of that master in the art of booking vaudeville 
talent, Mr. Abel Schwartz. 

Now he rubbed his pudgy hands, one of them deco¬ 
rated with a stone almost as large as the one twinkling 
from, the folds of his maroon tie, and blinked amiably 
at the ladies before him. “I’m entirely at your service,” 
he announced, employing his time-honored phrase. 
“You’re thinking of going on the stage, ladies?” 

Mrs. Werner shook her head in vigorous protest. 
She was a skinny, energetic little woman about 
Schwartz’s own age, dressed in shiny black, with a last 
28 


VIVIAN GETS A BOOKING 


29 


year’s hat, obviously home-constructed, perched upon 
her graying but luxuriant hair. Plainly nervous in her 
unaccustomed surroundings, her laugh sounded artifi¬ 
cially shrill in the little room. 

“I ain’t never thought of such a thing for myself,” 
she assured Schwartz in hasty self-depreciation, “ ’cause 
I never did have any talent. But my Vivian here,” 
with a tender nod for her companion, “Vivian’s just 
born for the stage. All the neighbors said so when 
she wasn’t any more’n seven and danced for the Red 
Men’s lodge over in Brooklyn, where we lived, and 
wore a red, white and blue dress and gold stars around 
her head. She made a terrible hit, didn’t you, Vivian?” 

“Now, mamma!” Vivian chided her parent softly, 
in real or pretended embarrassment. 

Schwartz surveyed the girl with a practiced eye; 
not more than eighteen at most, a skin so dazzling 
that even he resented her unnecessary make-up, soft 
dark hair and a boyish figure singularly graceful in the 
showy dress he characterized mercilessly as “nix for 
style.” She had possibilities, he decided, if she had 
anything to put over and enough “pep” to hold her 
own against more experienced performers. 

“So you think you can dance?” he asked the girl, not 
exactly unkindly, yet with businesslike curtness. 

Her mother answered for her. “All the latest steps, 
Mr. Schwartz. Ballroom and fancy dancing and char¬ 
acter things like the clog and an imitation of that Pav- 
lowa woman doing the ‘Butterfly.’ She took three 
courses at the Excelsior Academy over in Brooklyn, 
where we live, and her teachers all say she ought to 
go on the stage. Professor Newton, the principal of 
the school, told us to come and see you about it—he 


30 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


said you was one of the most reliable booking gentle¬ 
men in New York.” 

Schwartz acknowledged the compliment with a grace¬ 
ful nod; but he did not allow himself to share Vivian’s 
mamma’s enthusiasm too soon. “It ain’t a good season 
for beginners,” he began doubtfully. “It ain’t never a 
good season for beginners in this business, anyhow. 
And this year with so many of the musical shows going 
busted, you got a lot of real high-class stars out of 
work and ready to do anything in vaudeville. Like 
that young fellow in the reception room, waiting for 
me,” lowering his voice a trifle. “Notice him when 
you come in? Handsome as a collar ad, ain’t he, and 
he’s got brains in his feet, too. He says he was one 
of poor Vernon Castle’s first pupils and I believe him. 
And that poor fellow’s been hanging around here for 
almost a month trying to get a booking. Exceptional 
talent,” forgetting that Mrs. Werner, not being a man¬ 
ager, was not likely to be moved by a list of the young 
man’s accomplishments. “Eccentric dancing and 
straight stuff and he can sing a little, too, and do a 
monologue if he has to, when his partner changes her 
clothes. It’s a shame a boy like that can’t get a book¬ 
ing, but that shows you what you’re up against in 
vaudeville nowadays, when the best headliners are 
pawning their diamonds and going out selling books to 
pay their board bills.” 

“It ain’t a question of salary with us,” Vivian’s 
mother assured the booking agent. “We ain’t what 
you call well-to-do, but Vivian’s papa selig left me 
enough to open a boarding house over in Brooklyn; 
I’ve got every room full, and, though you know you 
don’t get rich feeding people nowadays with everything 


VIVIAN GETS A BOOKING 


31 


so high, I got a few Liberty Bonds in the bank and 
Vivian’s my only child, and I’d rather let her use 
’em now to get started with than have to wait for 
’em until I’m dead.” The generous parent paused for 
breath, then became alarmingly businesslike. “I’ll 
give you what you say is right to start Vivian on the 
stage,” she bargained. “How much do you want?” 

Abel Schwartz shook his head. “It can’t be done,” 
he told her. “Rockefeller himself couldn’t get on the 
big circuit with an act if he didn’t have the right talent. 
Talent’s what counts, and I don’t know whether your 
little girl has it or not. But maybe I can get her a 
try-out and see.” 

“I’ll pay you whatever it’s worth,” repeated Mrs. 
Werner, blissfully unconscious of just what a try-out 
was. “And you tell me what she needs in clothes. I’ll 
make ’em myself. I used to be a dressmaker before 
I got married.” 

Abel restrained an artistic shudder. “I’ll give you 
a card to a lady who sews for the profession and she’ll 
fix up our little girl just right. And maybe we’d better 
risk a set of our own—something kind of rich, but re¬ 
fined—maybe, a scene in Italy or some place like that 
with a man singing to a woman in a gondola. They did 
that at the ‘Capitol’ once and it went over big. Do you 
sing?” turning abruptly to Vivian. 

She flushed rosily under his sudden scrutiny. “Not 
much,” she confessed. “I can carry a tune, but the 
high notes-” 

“You can talk your songs then. Lots of headliners 
does and people like ’em better for it. Are you good 
at funny monologues—telling jokes, you know?” 

Vivian shook her head, ashamed of her lack of ac- 



32 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


complishments. “But I can do awfully nice cartwheels 
along with my dancing/’ she added hopefully. 

“I wonder—” the great man meditated ponder¬ 
ously. “I wonder if you couldn’t go on with young 
Mortimer out there as the ‘Eccentric Errols’ or some¬ 
thing. And do a lot of cartwheels in between and 
maybe fix up a kinda refined Apache dance for the 
two of you. Hey, Mortimer,” raising his voice, “come 
in here; I got a proposition to talk over with you.” 

The proposition made to the young man “as hand¬ 
some as a collar ad” was that he and Vivian should 
pool their talents and personal charms for at least one 
evening. Schwartz, for the regular fee to be paid by 
Mrs. Werner, who also promised to buy the Italian 
background and meet all other legitimate expenses, 
agreed to arrange for a try-out in one of the outlying 
theaters. An act full of eccentric dancing, monologues 
by Mortimer and Vivian’s famed Butterfly Dance 
(upon which her mother insisted), would undoubtedly 
win the favor of some monarch of the big circuit and 
result in at least eight months’ solid booking for the 
accomplished pair. So Mrs. Werner departed in high 
feather, the card of the lady who sewed for the pro¬ 
fession clasped in one of her shabbily gloved hands; 
Vivian followed her, shy, uncertain, as demure as 
though she had never heard of a cartwheel or a clog 
dance in her life; while Mortimer remained behind 
for a final word with Schwartz. 

“She ain’t bad looking,” conceded the collar ad 
gentleman, “after we put her in the right clothes. But 
do you think she can dance? And has she got per¬ 
sonality? Personality’s what counts on the stage and 
don’t you forget it. Why, when I was out on the Van 


VIVIAN GETS A BOOKING 


33 


Loan circuit last year in that skit with Mabel Burnside, 
didn’t Tom Blenker, the author, write me and thank 
me for acting in it? Would you believe me? Them 
were his very words: ‘My boy, you got the personality 
all right. I thank you for acting in my act.’ ” 

Schwartz, who was accustomed to dealing with 
geniuses, enthusiastic over their own talents, seemed 
mildly impressed. “I ain’t saying a word against per¬ 
sonality,” he returned. “But if I was you, Morty, I’d 
stop talking about personality stuff so much and go on 
a diet and try a little reducing. Personality’s all right 
in its place, but in dancing it’s legs that counts and 
you’re going to lose yours if you’re not careful and 
then where’ll you be!” Which argument Morty found 
unanswerable. 

If business had not taken Abel Schwartz to Brooklyn 
that Sunday morning, he would never have accepted 
Mrs. Werner’s almost passionate invitation that he 
drop in for dinner some time to look over dear Vivian’s 
new dancing dresses and talk over her act. Schwartz, 
like not a few New Yorkers, thought of Brooklyn as 
a place far too remote to tempt a hurried traveler; 
but the theater where Vivian and Morty were to make 
their debut as the “Two Whirling Whartons,” hap¬ 
pened to be in that isolated spot, and Schwartz, cursing 
freely at the subway service, went forth to meet his 
manager. But he felt himself repaid for the trip as he 
gorged himself upon the delicacies of Mrs. Werner’s 
Sunday noon table, from noodle soup to shalet. 

“You won’t believe it,” he told the widow when he 
took his hat several hours later and prepared to bid 
her good-by, “you won’t believe it, but the tears stood 
in my eyes when I ate your apple shalet. It made me 


34 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


think of my mamma selig and how she used to cook 
things I liked. Nobody thinks of me like her since 
she died. I never married while she was alive; I had 
a good home and it would have broke her heart if I’d 
married a shicksa, and I got too much sense to make 
some nice little Jewish girl like your Vivian unhappy. 
And since she’s gone I’ve been taking my meals at 
restaurants all the time and it’s hard on a man brought 
up like I was. I can’t get used to goyisha cooking. 
It takes a Jew to cook for a Jew. I go to the best 
places in town and it hurts me often the size check the 
waiter gives me when I get through, but I got to eat 
to keep up my strength, don’t I, even if it tastes all the 
same, and I’m ruining my poor stomach for my old 
age. Your son-in-law’s got it lucky, whoever he is, with 
you waiting to cook for him, Mrs. Werner!” 

Mrs. Werner gave a gasp of horror as she glanced 
into the old-fashioned, high-ceilinged parlor where 
Vivian sat entertaining several very young and very 
attentive callers. “Don’t beschrei the girl, Mr. 
Schwartz,” she pleaded. “Don’t say the word son-in- 
law to me. I’ve had a hard time all my life, dressmak¬ 
ing and keeping boarders and giving my Vivian private 
dancing lessons. It ain’t been easy and I don’t want 
my poor little girl to get married and go through 
what I did. All my life I’ve wanted to dance or paint 
pictures or go on the stage or something; and I ain’t 
ever had a chance. But Vivian’s going to. She and 
that Mr. Morty you picked for us is going to be a great 
hit, and if she’s got sense enough to keep from getting 
married, there’s no telling where she’ll land, is there, 
Mr. Schwartz?” In her eagerness she leaned toward 


VIVIAN GETS A BOOKING 


35 


him, placing a worn, needle-scarred hand upon the 
man’s arm. 

“Mrs. Werner,” he assured her solemnly, and al¬ 
though he was no longer eating his shalet, his eyes filled 
with tears, “Mrs. Werner, you’re a good woman. Like 
my poor mamma selig. I didn’t know your kind was 
living any more. I’ll do my best for your little girl 
and if she ain’t an A number i success, it ain’t going 
to be my fault.” 

“You’re sure she’ll be a hit?” 

“I ain’t sure of nothing in my business,” he told her. 
“You show me a man, Mrs. Werner, who says he knows 
for certain what’s going to go and what’s not going to 
go on Broadway, and I’ll show you a liar. You can’t 
tell, Mrs. Werner; even with the best intentions and 
the best backings in the world, you can’t tell.” 

At least you couldn’t tell with Vivian! Her try-out, 
while not a sensational success, was anything but a 
failure. Dressed in demure white muslin and pink 
rosebuds by the lady who knew the good points of her 
fair customers of the profession, she sang several senti¬ 
mental ballads in her untrained, pretty voice, and gave 
her Butterfly Dance as an encore; in a dashing dress 
of black and yellow she did certain wild and eccentric 
steps with the impassive Morty, their climax being a 
dance which was as Italian as it was anything else, 
executed against Schwartz’s pet Venetian backdrop, 
just as effective as though he had not picked it up sec¬ 
ond-hand. In all, theirs was a varied offering, which, 
with Morty’s swift legs and Vivian’s unspoiled youth, 
was good enough to draw considerable applause, and 
the suggestion from a visiting manager that they should 
call on him next day. Yes, he might be able to place 


36 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


that couple, he told Abel, but they’d sure have to tone 
their act up a lot before he’d touch it. 

About six o’clock the next evening, Mrs. Werner 
wiped her floury hands on her apron and almost flew 
into the parlor where Abel Schwartz sat, his fat face 
aglow with good humor, a contract for the Whirling 
Whartons in his breast pocket. But his good news had 
to wait, for the lady almost threw herself into his arms 
and poured forth a stream of unintelligible details— 
“Vivian—sent her to have her nails manicured— 
slipped out with her new suitcase—how I slaved for 
that girl—a messenger boy brought this—” and she 
thrust a paper into his hand. 

Schwartz scowled. “I always knew that damned 
Morty was too good looking for his own good,” he 
muttered. “A nice girl like your Vivian to run off 
with a goy who ought to be cleaning windows instead 
of dancing fox trots!” 

“It ain’t a goy—it ain’t Mr. Mortimer,” sobbed Mrs. 
Werner. “You just read her letter.” 

Schwartz opened the letter; as he ran over the deli¬ 
cately written lines there was no sound in the old- 
fashioned parlor but the ticking of the black clock 
with gilt trimmings and Mrs. Werner’s heart-broken 
sobbing. 

“Dear mamma,” wrote Vivian, “I don’t want to go 
on the stage. I always told you I didn’t want to. And 
Max Cohen has been going on perfectly awful. I met 
him this afternoon when I came out of the manager’s 
office. Max saw my act last night and he says he 
won’t let me keep on dancing with Mr. Mortimer—he’s 
too good looking and you know how terrible jealous 
Max always is. He says he won’t keep engaged to 


VIVIAN GETS A BOOKING 


37 


me any more if I go on the road and dance and sing 
and everything with another man right in front of 
everybody. I never told you I was engaged to Max, 
mamma, ’cause I knew you’d scold me. But now he’s 
afraid I’ll make such a success on the stage I won’t 
never want to marry him; and he says he’s going to 
kill himself. We’re going to be married this afternoon 
and Max is going to get a raise soon, so everything will 
be all right. And I’m sorry not to make a hit when you 
and Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Mortimer all tried to help 
me get a good booking, but I love Max, and mamma, 
love is the only thing in the world.” 

Schwartz folded the paper with a sigh. “She’s got 
it easy yet to talk about love,” he murmured, “after all 
you sunk in scenery and costumes, Mrs. Werner!” 
He patted her shaking shoulder. “Never mind— 
maybe we can get a little on ’em second-hand. And 
I ain’t going to charge you a agent’s fee, neither. I 
wouldn’t worry about Miss Vivian. She’s booked for 
life and it ain’t your fault if she’s picked out a bum 
circuit and the wrong dancing partner. Nope, it ain’t 
your fault.” 

He stopped in the midst of his condolences to sniff 
the air like a hungry terrier. “Smells like you got 
something grossartig for supper,” he hinted shame¬ 
lessly. 

Mrs. Werner dried her eyes. “Coffee kuchen I was 
just putting in the stove when you come,” she explained. 
“And maybe you’ll stay for supper. I want somebody 
lively like you at the table so the boarders won’t notice 
I got red eyes, and ask me too much about Vivian. 
And we got Wiener schnitzel and stewed tomatoes.” 

Mr. Schwartz’s eyes gleamed with appreciation. 


38 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


“For a meal like that I’d stay and joke every darn 
boarder in Brooklyn/’ he promised, never dreaming 
how soon he would make good his boast. For the little 
winged god was at that very moment floating unseen 
through the old-fashioned parlor, wafted upon the 
spicy fragrance from the kitchen, which stole so per¬ 
suasively to Schwartz’s hungry bachelor heart. Mrs. 
Werner had lost a daughter; but she was to gain a 
husband. 


MORE THAN BREAD 

All About an Amateur Social Worker and the Movies 

/^F course, everybody at the office teased me about 
it, and said I’m too kind-hearted to be a social 
worker. Which is all nonsense. If we workers who 
see how terribly hard it is for poor people to get along 
don’t sympathize with them, I don’t know who should. 
And I never saw anything very funny in bringing the 
cat I found those bad boys teasing, into our office and 
feeding it up and giving it a nice bath. Of course, it 
was always having kittens, which was a nuisance as it 
was so hard to find them good homes that Miss Coem, 
our secretary, said we ought to open a branch of the 
Home Finding Society to look after them. And, maybe, 
I was too sympathetic when I raised a collection for that 
poor man who was almost sent to jail for stealing milk 
for his children. It turned out he didn’t have any chil¬ 
dren at all, but he told me he was hungry enough to 
drink all the milk he stole, so I think he deserved some 
sympathy. My brother, who’s doing fine in the movies, 
laughed himself sick and said he was going to get one 
of his scenario writers to work it up for a comic, and 
he’d give me the star part. Of course, he wasn’t seri¬ 
ous. Lots of people have told me I’d screen grand, 
but I’d much rather stay in social work where I can 
do a little good. 

But I don’t think I ought to be teased about 
“Grandma Levine”—she’s kind of sacred, if you know 
39 


40 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


what I mean. We called her “Grandma” from the 
beginning; she looked just like one of those old women 
you see in the movies, being chased by the Indians or 
the English or somebody when they used to burn up 
the villages, houses and early settlers and everybody. 
She had a black silk handkerchief over her head and 
wore a big shawl, black with awfully pretty red flowers 
embroidered in it, and sort of flappy shoes. She was 
what my brother in the movies calls a “lovely type” 
and I was terribly sorry for her. 

It all came about like this: She came into our office 
several times one day, but wouldn’t speak to a soul. 
She told them she wanted to wait and tell her troubles 
to the lady with the nice curly hair and pretty smile. 
Miss Coem, whose hair is as straight as a string and 
who wouldn’t smile even if you raised her salary (which 
she certainly deserves, ’cause she’s held down her job 
for the last nine years with two weeks’ vacation in the 
summer, and not a day off for sickness between!), Miss 
Coem didn’t like that very much, I guess, especially 
when she’s jealous of my hair and insists it isn’t natu¬ 
ral. When all I do is wet it and run a comb through 
it and- 

Anyhow, Miss Coem always says she knows the 
cases would rather have me tend to them because 
I’m easier to impose on than she is; maybe she’s right. 
But I don’t think she’d waste any money or time, 
either, if she tried smiling once in a while when she 
was filling out blanks, or got herself a permanent hair 
wave! 

So when I got in around five o’clock after spending 
almost all afternoon trying to get that Dembitz boy 
in a hospital where he could eat kosher, account of 



MORE THAN BREAD 


41 


his father who was terribly religious, though his mother 
didn’t care as long as he got well, anyhow, when I got 
back to the office there sat “ Grandma Levine” waiting 
for me. As soon as I came in, she grabbed my hand 
and began a regular stream of Yiddish about seeing 
me come in and out of the office, and knowing I had 
a good heart, and would I help keep a poor old Jewish 
mother out of the cemetery a little longer? 

I didn’t understand half of what she said, of course; 
she spoke so fast and I’ve forgotten a lot of my high 
school German which I never got very well, anyhow; 
besides, I don’t see much use in learning a lot of for¬ 
eign languages till you go to Europe and may have 
to speak them. But I had Miss Coem interpret for 
me and made her stay around in case I didn’t get the 
story just right. You see, I’m pretty careful now and 
don’t depend on my German like I used to when I 
came into the work last year and tried to speak and 
understand Yiddish just as though I was used to it. 
’Cause I had an awfully narrow escape: I had to go 
to a barber shop to tell the owner that if he didn’t sup¬ 
port his wife we’d put him in jail. And I kept calling 
him “Herr,” because I believe it’s better to be polite to 
people even if you are threatening them. He was a 
little deaf, and anyhow, seeing a lady in a barber shop, 
he thought I came in to have my hair bobbed, as so 
many girls were doing then, and tried to push me in 
the barber chair and put a sheet on me. Wasn’t that 
awful? My brother nearly died laughing over it, and 
he said he was going to star me in a film called “Beckela 
Bobs Her Hair,” or something like that. But that was 
all a joke; I haven’t any intention of acting in the 


42 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


movies, although my brother’s partner says I’d film 
grand and he’s in a position to know. 

Anyhow, with Miss Coem’s help, I managed to make 
out the poor old thing’s story. I was crying like a baby 
when she got through with it; sometimes I think I’m 
too kind-hearted to do social work, because I always 
feel everybody’s troubles as though they were my own. 
Even Miss Coem looked touched and had to wipe her 
eyes. It would have made a beautiful magazine story, 
just the way she told it, and I would like to write it up 
if I wasn’t so busy with social work and a hundred 
and one other things just now. When I was in high 
school my English teachers were always giving me A 
on my themes and telling me I ought to write for the 
magazines. 

Poor old Mrs. Levine was having a dreadful time, 
she said. She came to this country just a few months 
ago to live with her married son and his family. He 
had too many children—those kind of people always 
have!—and they were all crowded together in three 
little rooms and the landlord threatened to evict them 
and everything. And he was the last of all her chil¬ 
dren; her daughter ran away with a Gentile and her 
two older boys got killed in the war or something. It 
was really terrible. 

And then this son got killed in an accident a few 
weeks before. She was awfully vague about it, but 
she cried so hard when she was telling what it meant 
for a mother to bury her son instead of having him say 
Kaddish for her, that I made Miss Coem stop asking 
her whether the widow could collect any damages. 
Sometimes I think Miss Coem has been in social work 
too long and it’s hardened her. I wish she’d get some- 


MORE THAN BREAD 


43 


thing to do that would make her a little more sympa¬ 
thetic. And now the family was just about starving. 
The oldest boy sold papers, she said, and her daugh¬ 
ter-in-law sometimes went out working by the day, 
but she couldn’t do much because she was sickly and 
still nursing her baby. She said the baby was over a 
year old and I made her promise to tell her daughter- 
in-law to wean it quick. Those people oughtn’t to be 
allowed to have children unless they know how to take 
care of them. But, as Miss Coem says, you can’t pass 
laws for everything. 

So the family were actually starving—living on bread 
and weak tea and sometimes only tea. Wasn’t that 
pitiful? I was awfully tired, and I had a date for the 
theater that evening, too, but I was all ready to go 
back with Mrs. Levine and investigate and see what 
we could do for the family. But she wouldn’t let me. 
She told me with tears in her eyes she’d been watching 
me for several days and knew how kind-hearted I was, 
just to look at me, and that’s why she finally got 
enough courage to come in and see me. 

But her daughter-in-law was awfully proud, she said, 
and would just about kill her if she knew that old 
Mrs. Levine was asking for charity. “She’d break my 
neck,” was her very expression; but these people ex¬ 
aggerate so, I didn’t believe her daughter-in-law would 
really be violent. Anyhow, she didn’t want young 
Mrs. Levine to know that we knew their troubles. 

But I finally persuaded her to take a five-dollar bill 
—I gave it out of my own pocket, so I don’t see why 
Miss Coem had to act so uppish afterwards and tell 
me she’d advised me against it!—and she said she’d tell 
her daughter-in-law she’d met a landsmann who made 


44 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


her take it just for a loan. And she said she’d buy 
food and coal and milk for the baby and she knew 
God would get both of us nice husbands for helping 
a poor old Jewish mother who hadn’t long to live and 
did want to have a piece of herring for supper once 
in a while before she died, and a roof over her head. 
She cried when she said it, and tried to kiss my hand. 
And then she went home, and Miss Coem went on with 
her reports, working overtime as usual, and I had to 
run to the subway to dress for my date, and then I 
came a half hour late to the theater as it was. But 
I never mind putting myself out if it’s in a good cause, 
as I told my brother’s partner who took me. And he 
was quite impressed when I told him how when the 
poor old thing kissed my hand, she said, “Lady, what 
you give me is better than bread.” I supposed she 
meant a kind word along with the money was worth 
more than bread to her, but you can’t make Miss Coem 
see things that way. She never realizes how much a 
little sympathy means to these people. 

Well, about two weeks later, who should come into 
our office but a woman who said she was old Mrs. 
Levine’s daughter-in-law. A very respectable-looking 
woman even if her clothes were awfully old-fashioned; 
but they were nice and neat and she had good shoes on 
and her hair was nicely combed. I always notice such 
details—they help you so in your work! And she said 
she had come to have us help her find “Grandma 
Levine!” 

She said she was an awfully busy woman herself, and 
her two daughters were always running out nights, and 
her husband came home from work too tired to do any¬ 
thing but read the paper and go to bed. He was a 


MORE THAN BREAD 


45 


plumber—and you know what good wages they get— 
and wasn’t ever in any accident she’d ever heard of— 
and she hadn’t had a nursing baby for years and didn’t 
want one, either—or a son to sell newspapers; and she 
guessed her mother-in-law must be crazy to tell such 
stories about her. They always supposed the old lady 
went to bed right after supper while young Mrs. Levine 
was doing the dishes; but last night she went into her 
room for something and—the old lady wasn’t there. And 
she hadn’t come home, either. Mrs. Levine said she 
didn’t like to tell the police if she could help it, and her 
husband thought, maybe, we could help trace her 
without anybody knowing anything about it. 

Miss Coem—who ought to be a detective—found 
Grandma Levine over in a police station in Brooklyn. 
She wouldn’t tell them her name or anything, so they 
couldn’t send her home. It was an awfully funny 
story when we got it all out of her; my brother’s part¬ 
ner nearly died laughing when I told him, but he said 
he wouldn’t dare put it in the movies—nobody would 
believe it. But it really happened just as old Lady 
Levine told it to Miss Coem, who translated it to me. 
I wrote it all down in my notebook; maybe I’ll write 
her up some day if I ever get time. 

“Ladies, I couldn’t help it. Coming across the ocean 
I hear people on the boat talking about the ‘movies/ 
the ‘movies/ and I never seen none before in my whole 
life. I’m a poor old woman, ladies, and I haven’t got 
so long to live any more, and I want to see just one 
movie before I die. My son and his wife and his girls, 
they ain’t so bad to me. They give me my rolls and 
coffee in the morning no matter what time I get up, 
and maybe a piece of salmon. I got a good bed and 


46 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


blankets and a nice white spread, and his wife made 
over an old dress of hers for me to wear to schul on 
Shabbas if I wanted to go sometimes. But it ain’t al¬ 
ways Shabbas and I get tired of schul. I go to schul 
all my life but never once to a movie. I tell my son 
about it and he laughs and says he’s too tired; and my 
daughter-in-law never goes out no place. She is a ter¬ 
rible woman; she works all day and all night she knits 
sweaters; she says the movies give her a headache and 
she won’t go with me. And the two girls run out with 
their young men all the time and they won’t bother 
with me. And when I say, ‘For God’s sake, give me a 
little money, and let me go alone,’ they say, ‘You’ll 
get lost. But some day we’ll take you to a show, 
maybe.’ But they don’t—and I want to see one movie 
before I die. 

“The lady with the curly hair’s got a good heart 
and she gives me the money. I didn’t tell her no lie; 
it was more than bread to me. And every night 
when my daughter-in-law washed her dishes I ran out 
the back way and got a soda by the drug store and 
went to the movie show on the corner. I used to stay 
through the show twice. I couldn’t read the writing 
and I didn’t understand all the pictures, but I was see¬ 
ing a movie and that was all I wanted. 

“One night a picture stopped right in the middle. 
A nice Yiddish woman sat next to me and she said, 
when I asked her, the picture didn’t run all at once— 
a different part every night at a different theater. It 
was the ‘Pet of Broadway’—a grand picture. She said 
she was going over to Brooklyn to see the next part; 
she read in her Jewish paper where it played. And 
she would take me with her. I got almost a dollar left 


MORE THAN BREAD 


47 


so I go; I thought, maybe, it would take me as far 
as Brooklyn and pay for my ticket to the show. But 
when I get out of the show in Brooklyn I lost her in the 
crowd and couldn’t find a street car. And I wouldn’t 
tell no one where I lived; I didn’t want my son to know 
and scold me. And now he will watch me all the time 
and won’t let me go to the movies no more.” 

Of course, Mr. Levine, who isn’t at all bad for a 
plumber, promised to see that his mother got to the 
movies at least twice a week with a neighbor child to 
look after her. But that isn’t the best of it: my 
brother and his partner called for me the day she 
came to the office to thank me for fixing things up for 
her, and they think she’s just the type they want for the 
old immigrant woman in their new feature film, “The 
Pearl of Ellis Island.” She’s going to be the heroine’s 
old mother, and they’re spending a lot of money on it, 
and they expect it to have a much longer run than 
“Humoresque” or “The Golem,” and all those other 
Jewish films. 

Grandma Levine is going all over the neighborhood 
now, telling everybody she is going to act in the movies. 
Even her granddaughters make a fuss of her on account 
of it and her son’s promised the night the film’s released 
he’ll take her and the whole family to see it. I’d like 
to be there myself to see the poor old thing’s face when 
she sees herself on the screen. Of course, it isn’t a big 
part. My brother says she’s got the real stuff—she’s a 
regular Yiddish actor—and he’s afraid she’s too true 
to life for much of a part on the screen. But she 
comes down the gangplank and kisses her daughter, 
and in one scene she sits on the ground and mourns for 
her when they all think she’s run off to marry the vil- 


48 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


lain. It’s awfully touching and I cried a lot when I 
saw it run off in the projection room, or whatever they 
call it. I guess Miss Coem’s right—I’m too tender¬ 
hearted to be in social work. 

That’s one of the reasons I won’t be around for the 
first showing of “The Pearl of Ellis Island.” I’m drop¬ 
ping my work and I’m going to marry my brother’s 
partner, and we’ll be spending our honeymoon in the 
Bermudas by that time. But if I ever get around to it 
I’ll write up Grandma Levine’s story and send it to 
some magazine. My high school teachers always told 
me I could write! 


THE TWO-EDGED SWORD 

A Tale of the Time of the Maccabees 

M EN tell many tales of Judas the Maccabee, that 
lion of God, many stories of his light-hearted 
daring, his purity of heart and love for Israel. But 
few know how he wooed and won the maid Helen, 
golden-haired captive of the enemy, only to lose her 
in the end. 

In the early days of the struggle against Antiochus, 
tyrant over Israel, Judas Maccabeus met the Syrian 
general Apollonius in battle. The Lord was on his 
side, and though his troops were new in warfare, Judas 
won a great triumph; the heathen were either slain in 
battle or saved their lives in flight, for they were sorely 
afraid seeing that Apollonius, their captain, had fallen. 
But the men of Judas were filled with new courage upon 
that day; they rejoiced in their own strength and the 
strength of Judas, their captain; and Judas took from 
the dead hand of Apollonius his great two-edged sword 
in token of his victory. This was the sword that Judas 
the Maccabee ever afterwards carried as long as he did 
battle for Israel, and it was this sword he still held 
when in the last days he fell fighting upon the battle¬ 
field. 

Now this victory over Apollonius was but the first 
of many which Judas the Hammer won over the ene¬ 
mies of Israel. Although at first his men were untried 
for battle, hungry and ragged, some without helmets 
49 


50 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


and others without spears, still he triumphed over 
the trained warriors Antiochus sent against him. For 
the Lord was on his side and Judas was a mighty man 
of valor. Moreover, the enemy fought in a strange 
land, but to Judas, bred in the hills about Modin, the 
mountains of his home land were as well known to him 
as the features of his beloved. And since he fought 
also to avenge her, Helen, whom the Syrians held cap¬ 
tive, he fought with the strength of King David in the 
olden days. 

As a boy in Modin, Judas had loved his cousin 
Miriam, a bright-haired little maid who laughed at his 
clumsy wooing but loved him none the less. And he 
dreamed even then of wedding her and taking her to 
his father’s house as his wife. But that was in the 
days before Antiochus began to trouble all Israel and 
a true man dared have no wife but the sword. 

Among those whom the Syrians took captive when 
they swept over the land like an army of devouring 
locusts were the wife and daughters of Judas’s uncle. 
In the fastness of the hills about Modin he often 
thought of her, bright-haired Miriam, a captive in the 
hands of the enemy. So that when he fought, Judas 
waged war not alone for the glory of God and the free¬ 
dom of Israel, but also in her name, seeking to rescue 
her or at least to avenge her death. 

There is no need to tell of the Maccabee’s battles, 
for they are written in the books which bear the name 
of Judas and his brothers, nor of the death of An¬ 
tiochus, the mad king, passing away amid tortures 
more horrible than those he devised for Israel’s mar¬ 
tyrs. But no man has set down the tale of his meeting 
with Miriam, the golden-haired Jewish maiden, whom 


THE TWO-EDGED SWORD 51 

the Greeks called Helen, and how he lost her in the 
end. 

It was in the household of Nicanor that Judas met 
her the day he came to make a treaty of peace with 
the new governor over Judea. They say that De¬ 
metrius, the king, had sent Nicanor to Jerusalem to 
overcome Judas the Maccabee by force of arms; but 
that Nicanor, seeing him, loved him as his own brother, 
and prayed to his own gods that there should be peace 
between them. And, although at first Judas feared 
the heathen general’s craft, he soon gave him his trust, 
glad to have peace for the land was weary of warfare. 

So Judas came often to the house of Nicanor at 
Jerusalem, not only because the governor was his 
friend, but to see Miriam whom the Greeks called 
Helen. For at the beginning of the war, the soldiers 
of the king had carried away many women and chil¬ 
dren into captivity. Miriam and her sisters had been 
taken into the household of Nicanor, where they found 
their lot pleasant, serving his wife, a gentle mistress, 
disposed to deal kindly with the Jewish captives. 
Miriam’s rare beauty had won her many privileges 
and when under the gentle compulsion of those she 
served, she adopted the Grecian dress and customs 
and changed her name to Helen, she was treated less 
as a servant than a daughter of the household. And 
her desertion of the ways of her fathers troubled her 
but little, for in those days many deserted the faith 
and it was a hard thing to remain a Jewess. 

But when Helen met Judas after their long separa¬ 
tion she hated herself for her disloyalty to her people 
and vowed that should she be tested again she would 


52 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


show herself true-hearted and loyal even as Judas and 
his brethren had been. 

“It was so easy to follow the ways of the Greeks,” 
she told Judas one evening as they sat together in the 
gardens about Nicanor’s house at Jerusalem. “My 
father has always loved the ways of the Grecians, and 
when these people were kind to me—” She clung to 
him with sudden passion. “My Judas, w'hen will you 
take me away from this house? I cannot be a Jewess 
here in the home of Nicanor. But when we dwell to¬ 
gether-” 

“I dare not take a wife in these uncertain times,” 
Judas told her, finding it hard to speak calmly for 
he loved her exceedingly and longed to listen to her 
pleading. “Now there seems to be good will and trust 
between Syria and Judea; Nicanor is my friend and 
I trust him. Yet there are too many Judeans among 
us who are restless and unsatisfied. To satisfy their 
lust for power they may seek to sow dissension be¬ 
tween the court and us who try to be faithful subjects 
of the king as long as he allows us to worship the 
God of our fathers. And should these trouble-makers 
again force our necks under the yoke, we who would 
keep the faith must be ready to defend our rights even 
with our lives.” 

He dropped her hand and his brown fingers tightened 
about his sword-hilt. Helen’s eyes glanced along the 
richly ornamented sheath and she shuddered. For she 
knew that it was the two-edged sword of Apollonius 
he carried, the sword he had taken from the corpse 
of his terrible enemy; she was frightened to think of 
Judas whom she loved for his tenderness, no longer 



THE TWO-EDGED SWORD 53 

her lover, but the heroic leader, terrible as a lion upon 
the battlefield. 

But Judas laughed and kissed her. “Fear not,” he 
said, “for perhaps I am over-zealous and see a sword 
in every hand—although my former enemies offer me 
gifts and friendship. Let us wait but a month longer 
—or at most two. Then if there seems to be a lasting 
peace for Judea, I shall bring you to my house as my 
bride, and the pain of our long parting will be wiped 
away in our love.” Thus spoke the lion of Israel; he 
never dreamed how soon he was to learn that for him 
there could never be peace or fulfillment until he slept 
with his fathers, his battles over at last. 

For even at that moment, Alcimus, that false priest 
in Israel, was pouring lying tales into the king’s ears, 
saying that Nicanor was playing the part of a traitor 
to his master, that he secretly aided Judas in his plans, 
and hoped to place him upon the throne in the king’s 
stead. AH this Alcimus treacherously told King De¬ 
metrius, and Demetrius listened willingly, right glad 
to hear evil reports of the hated Judeans. So he sent 
urgent letters to his governor, Nicanor, accusing him 
because of his friendship for Judas, begging him at 
once to send Judas the Maccabee in chains to the royal 
court at Antioch. 

Helen heard of the matter, for she was treated as a 
daughter of the house of Nicanor, and she learned also 
how the great captain shrank from betraying his friend, 
yet dared not face the anger of his king. And when 
she pleaded with Nicanor, begging him to defend 
Judas, he would promise her nothing; he only threat¬ 
ened her should she betray what she had learned to 
her lover. 


54 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


The two met for the last time in the gardens of 
Nicanor and Helen broke down utterly and wept when 
she told Judas of the king’s decree. “I am betraying 
Nicanor who has always been more than a father to 
me/’ she said, “but I cannot see you come to harm. 
Come no more to this place and no longer seek Nicanor 
in friendship. For after a bitter struggle with himself 
he has determined to send you a prisoner to the king.” 

Judas’s face grew white in the moonlight as he lis¬ 
tened. “I do not believe you/’ he said harshly. 
“Nicanor is my true friend and you for some strange 
reason seek to breed hatred between us. I would have 
been as likely to give over my father’s white head to 
the enemy as Nicanor to betray me to the king. I 
cannot believe you.” 

She shrank a little but continued to plead with him. 
“I can give you proofs/’ she urged. “Go from this 
place while there is still time. And, if you have ever 
loved me, take me with you, for my life is not safe 
should Nicanor learn that I have betrayed his plans. 
And I do not care to live if I am forced to part from 
you again,” and she clung to him, kissing his robes 
and hands as a suppliant might and humbling herself 
before him. 

But Judas sprang to his feet, thrusting her aside. “I 
will seek Nicanor,” he said quietly, “and learn the 
truth from his own lips.” 

She barred his path. “I will not let you go. He 
waits for you now—and there are others with him. 
There is a plot to overcome you and send you in chains 
to the king.” 

“I do not believe you,” he told her again in the 
same quiet, hard tones. “So I will seek Nicanor,” 


THE TWO-EDGED SWORD 


55 


and he sought to pass her. But she clung to his robe 
and detained him. 

“Have I ever lied to you before?” demanded the 
girl. 

“No—but you acted a lie all the months when you 
pretended to be a Greek.” 

“I did it to save myself.” 

“Old Eleazer and the little children of Hannah did 
not think to save themselves,” he answered harshly. 
“How do I know but that even now you are using me 
for a tool—seeking to set me against Nicanor, my 
friend, for some purpose of your own? But there will 
never be enmity between us for he is my heart’s own 
brother. Nothing you can say or do will persuade me 
that there is treachery in his clean heart.” 

The woman who had once been Miriam stood before 
him very fair and white, the moonlight falling upon 
her golden hair and honey-colored robes. Her face 
contracted with pain at his words; then she grew sud¬ 
denly calm. 

“You will know that I am not lying when I prove 
that I am no longer afraid,” she answered him clearly. 
“When I was a coward before, I clung to life in the 
hope that I might look upon your face again. But now 
I will not live to see you slain or dishonored.” Leap¬ 
ing forward she seized the hilt of the great two-edged 
sword of Apollonius and drew it from its sheath. 
Judas gave a cry of horror, but he was too late. She 
fell at his feet, her life blood staining the honey-col¬ 
ored robes a deep crimson, her face quivering in the 
agony of death. 

Judas threw himself beside her, seeking to staunch 
her wound, crying upon her to forgive him ere she 


56 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


died. But she did not answer. At last he rose to his 
feet, his face very old and tired. Should he seek 
Nicanor now and ask him the cause of her sudden 
madness? Or for one evening at least might he cease 
to be the warrior and mourn the slain love of his 
youth? 

Even as he hesitated he saw several armored men 
passing through the outer court and into the house of 
Nicanor. They wore the livery of the king’s house¬ 
hold and as they crossed the threshold one of them 
drew a scroll out of his girdle. Judas strained his ears 
to listen. 

“Is your prisoner, Judas the Maccabee, ready?” 
asked the envoy of the king. 

If Judas’s heart broke at his friend’s treachery he 
gave no sign. He only bent to kiss the bright hair of 
the woman who had once been his playmate among the 
spring-flushed hills of Modin. Then, with the two- 
edged sword of his dead enemy in his hand, he crept 
softly out of the moonlit gardens to fight anew the 
battles of his people and to avenge the death of the 
golden-haired maid whom the Greeks had once called 
Helen. 


IN THE RABBI’S STUDY * 

A Series of Thumb-nail Sketches 

I. SCHNORRERS 

AS soon as a new schnorrer strikes our little town, 
he hunts up the rabbi. You see, he labors under 
the delusion that the rabbi will be more sympathetic 
and less keen about unearthing unpleasant details than 
the average business man. But he forgets that the 
rabbi who has entertained the entire luckless brother¬ 
hood for years is somewhat hardened to their tales of 
misfortune, which usually exhibit a striking similarity, 
and has learned to sniff skeptically at even the most 
artistically colored down-and-out story which the wan¬ 
dering schnorrer passes to him across the study table. 

Though I have to confess that I was almost con¬ 
vinced by the sad history Heimowitz told me last year. 
He was a big, lumbering man, with a fringe of coarse 
gray hair about his bald spot, a nose that was reas¬ 
suringly Jewish, and one eye. It was pouring outside 
and a stream of water trickled sadly from his disgrace¬ 
ful shoes until it formed a pool around his chair; 
Heimowitz told me that he suffered from rheumatism, 
which made those wet boots even more pathetic. As 
he talked he twisted his greasy derby in his muscular, 
hairy hands; I noticed with a shock that two fingers 
were missing from the left hand. 

* If desired, any one of these sketches may be omitted if a 
shorter reading is required. 


57 



58 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


“I just had enough money to bring me here,” he 
told me. A bad beginning! I should have been 
warned as nine schnorrers out of ten always have just 
enough loose change to carry them to your town before 
they are thrown upon the mercy of a hard-hearted 
public. But Heimowitz held me fascinated with his 
one good eye and went on. “I am a peddler. I have 
a wife and four children living near Waukesha. We 
have our little home—all paid for—and a vegetable 
garden.” His gloomy face brightened. “Some day, 
rabbi, you will come to Waukesha and I show you my 
garden. Honest to God, we raised enough last sum¬ 
mer to feed us all winter.” His face clouded. “But 
I can’t make much money any more in Waukesha; 
the license is high and the other peddlers try to put me 
out of business. So I go traveling in the country. My 
horse dies just two days ago. I sell the wagon—a big 
loss, doctor—and I look for work. But I can’t find 
any.” 

He pointed with his maimed hand to his injured 
eye. “I got this eye last winter ; two holdup men near 
Waukesha. I have my money—you will excuse me, 
rabbi!—I have my money hid under my undershirt 
and they can’t find it and they get mad and try to kill 
me. I half killed one of them,” he ends complacently, 
“but the other one cut my hand and punched out my 
eye.” 

It is a brand new story and I am thrilled, but still 
remember that I am the official investigator for our 
charity committee and ask unmoved: “But why don’t 
you go back to Waukesha?” 

He shrugs hopelessly. “What is there for me till 
I get me a new horse and wagon? And my wife is 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 


59 


sick—she had a operation—and for six years now she 
can’t eat white bread and no sugar. And the doctor 
bills! I want to get some work here, rabbi. I like the 
town. I ain’t a regular schnorrer. God knows, I 
wouldn’t ask it you should give me a ticket home on 
the railroad. I want I should stay here and earn a 
living and maybe make a little extra and send it home 
to my wife and children. And they have their gar¬ 
den. Once you should see our onions and radishes, 
doctor! Just give me a chance, rabbi. I don’t want 
any money—I wouldn’t take it. Just give me a few 
brooms—and maybe a half a dozen of nice dusters— 
and some mops—some oil mops, maybe. I ain’t strong; 
I have rheumatism and asthma and my teeth are all 
bad. But I will work till I fall on my face. If you 
could get me the brooms from somebody in the con¬ 
gregation—it would be a mitzvah to let me have them 
at cost, rabbi, and I pay back when I can—if you 
could get me some brooms and mops and little dusters 
—I could make so much; perhaps, two dollars a day.” 

“Just selling brooms?” 

He tried to hide his disgust for my ignorance. “I 
don’t want money for my brooms. The ladies give 
me old shoes and pants and vests from their husbands. 
I sell the old clothes for good money. In a month 
I save enough to send money home to my wife—she 
don’t pay no rent and we have our garden, thank God! 
—and she can take care of the children. You just get 
me the brooms, rabbi, and”—here he gave me a 
friendly wink with his one sound eye—“and I do the 
rest.” 

I got him the brooms although Frankenstein, our 
local Jewish hardware dealer, insisted upon a deposit 


60 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


(from my pocket, of course!), growling that he 
wouldn’t trust Heimowitz any further than he could 
see him. Which I considered unkind as Frankenstein 
is notoriously near-sighted. Then, finding that a large 
peddler’s license was required, I actually put myself 
under lasting obligation to our city clerk to let Heimo¬ 
witz wander about hawking brooms without paying the 
usual fee. It’s more than likely that the official from 
whom I’ve never asked a single favor for myself will 
expect to be repaid with interest at the next election. 
But not from Heimowitz! 

That gentleman received his brooms and thanked me 
with his one good eye full of tears; he even asked me 
to find him room and board with a respectable Jewish 
family, adding that he could eat very little on account 
of his stomach, but wanted that little to be kosher. 
Reformer rabbiners, he knew, never ate kosher, but 
he was only a poor, ignorant peddler who hoped to die 
a good Jew. With which parting slap he left me, 
brooms, oil mops and all, and I have never seen him 
since. Although he had been extremely anxious to 
learn when my Friday night services began. He said 
he wanted to hear me preach. 

Now Heimowitz, according to his own appraisal, 
was just a plain business man; but Strausky, who 
called on me the next week, was an artiste—nay, a 
genius. He raved poetically of persecution in the va¬ 
rious cities in which he played first violin “by Handel- 
mann’s Roof Garden—you know the place?” and Ru¬ 
dolph’s “Little Cafe” and Grossman’s Music Hall. 
Fellow musicians were always jealous of him—it was 
hard to find another place—but he had a friend in Cin¬ 
cinnati who conducted an orchestra. If I would only 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 61 

send him there, Strausky urged, I would be saving an 
artiste from suicide and a fellow-Jew from death. 

You may know that the National Conference of 
Jewish Charities have made the wise provision that the 
community which sends an improvident wanderer to 
the next stopping-off place will be held responsible for 
his welfare and support. So I refused to buy the de¬ 
sired ticket and suggested that our musician should 
linger about town while I found suitable work for him. 
He told me that was just what he wanted; honest work 
through the day, a little room where he might play his 
beloved violin at night, until he had saved enough to 
pay for a ticket to Cincinnati. He accepted my note 
to the local Employment Bureau with profound thanks, 
but failed to find the place. If you should meet him 
wandering about the country, a violin case in his hand, 
my second-best Prince Albert on his back, just tell him 
what I think of him. 

So, you see, it’s pretty hard to do the right thing by 
schnorrers. We tried to do our best for Heimowitz 
and Strausky—and a hundred others—but the one was 
a clever rogue and the other a common loafer. Cases 
like theirs are discouraging enough, but I always feel 
the most disheartened when I meet the man who really 
seems worth saving. For there are fellows like Berg¬ 
man—perhaps the saddest case of its kind that I have 
ever encountered. He was a slim young chap with an 
empty trouser leg and moved as though his crutches 
hurt him. He spoke with the inflections and vocabu¬ 
lary of a college professor—and stopped me on the 
street corner to beg a quarter for a night’s lodging. 
Up in my study we talked things over; the most hope¬ 
less part of it was that he saw as clearly as I did the 


62 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


utter blackness of his future. Just a boy—he was 
twenty-four, he said, and looked even younger—a crip¬ 
ple, and afflicted with lung trouble, with no family, and 
as far as we could see, no way to earn his own living. 

“I used to live in New York,” he said, “newspaper 
work. But I couldn’t move fast enough with these to 
keep up with the game.” This with a half-humorous 
twitch toward his crutches. “I’ve been trying to do 
odd jobs along the way and get to Colorado. But 
tramping is rather a precarious existence for a man 
in my condition. I’m not going to tell you the usual 
thing you must hear from every beggar who drifts in 
here. It’s no use saying that I’d do any sort of work— 
when I’ve scarcely the strength to pound a typewriter. 
And it’s not very likely you could get me on one of 
your local papers. Maybe if I could get to Denver” 
—his eyes widened—“it would make a man of me. 
Think you could send me where I could begin all over 
again?” 

We kept him in town while we wired back to verify 
his story. The people he had given as his references 
were slow in answering and when they wrote at last 
their reports hardly justified our helping the cripple 
on to Colorado. But he no longer needed our aid, for 
like most of the wanderers that perplex a small town 
charity committee he had “passed on.” He died in 
the free ward of our hospital, babbling in his delirium 
of many things he had not cared to tell me in my study. 
Perhaps it was the easiest way to solve his problem; 
perhaps, although he never set out for Colorado, he 
found his opportunity to begin all over again. 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 


63 


II. The Second Generation 

Oddly enough, whenever I hear hail rapping, rap¬ 
ping against the window pane, I think of that bleak 
day in early March when Joseph Cahn came to see me. 
He had brought his wife, or rather, she had brought 
him. Mrs. Cahn was a little, sharp-faced woman, 
shrewd of face and quick of tongue; a good house¬ 
keeper, said the ladies of my congregation, and an 
excellent mother to Joseph Cahn’s four children since 
the death of his first wife when little Florence was 
hardly more than a baby. And now little Florence had 
grown into a pretty girl of twenty and her father was 
asking me to officiate at her wedding. 

“I guess you’ve heard that Florrie’s going to be mar¬ 
ried soon,” began Joseph Cahn awkwardly. I nodded, 
feeling genuinely sorry for his embarrassment. For 
congregational gossip had informed me that Florence’s 
fiance, although an excellent young man, was a non- 
Jew; in fact, Frank Dawson’s father was one of our 
most respected citizens and a deacon in the Methodist 
church. “She’s going to be married,” repeated Joe 
Cahn lamely, “and so I came to see you—”; his voice 
trailed off emptily, and Mrs. Cahn hastened to assist 
him. 

“It’s this way, doctor,” she explained just a little 
too briskly. “I know you’ll understand. Let me ex¬ 
plain it to him, Joe,” to her plainly self-conscious hus¬ 
band. Then to me: “I don’t have to tell you, doctor, 
I feel just like a mother to Florrie—and I ought to be 
able to sympathize with her, too, my own parents being 
Methodists, and our marriage,” with a side-long glance 
at her husband, “being such a congenial one. So when 


64 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Florrie decided to marry Mr. Dawson, I said to her, 
‘Florrie, we owe it to your dear father, when he’s a 
trustee in your church and all that, to have you mar¬ 
ried by your own minister. I’m not against intermar¬ 
riage,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see any use of hurting peo¬ 
ple’s feelings when you don’t have to.’ ” 

“And Miss Florence?” I asked. “Is she willing to 
have a Jewish wedding?” 

“I think she will to please me,” put in Mr. Cahn 
timidly, but Mrs. Cahn swept past him. 

“She told me to come and talk to you,” she explained. 
“She knows it will mean more to her father if she’s 
married by a Jewish minister and Mr. Dawson’s per¬ 
suaded his people to come, anyhow, so everything will 
be just lovely.” She beamed on me confidently and 
Joe Cahn looked up from the carpet with a sort of 
pathetic expectancy I hated to dispel. But I wanted 
to be rather sure of the situation before I committed 
myself further. 

“It will be a Jewish wedding, won’t it?” I asked 
slowly, because I wasn’t just sure how to phrase my 
question. “Otherwise I’ll be entirely out of place.” 

“A Jewish wedding?” Mrs. Cahn looked puzzled. 

“I’m not demanding that the young man become a 
Jew,” I went on. “Of course, I have my own views 
on intermarriage, but if Miss Florence is still Jewish 
enough to wish me to perform the ceremony, I’ll do my 
part—if I can.” 

“I should like it.” This very humbly from Joe 
Cahn. 

“I am willing to make that concession; I shall not 
insist upon a conversion. But I cannot make any other 
concessions. If the young people want a rabbi at their 


IN THE RABBES STUDY 


65 


wedding, it must be a Jewish ceremony. They must 
live like Jews; their children must be reared as Jews.” 

“But—really should you demand so much?” fluttered 
Mrs. Cahn. 

“I am not demanding anything. But unless this is 
a Jewish wedding,” I repeated quietly, “it would be 
mockery for me to perform the ceremony, and you 
should have a Christian minister. Suppose you ask 
Miss Florence to come and see me. I’ll explain my 
side of the case to her and then the young folks can 
decide for themselves.” 

“I’m sure she’ll do anything you ask just to have 
you with us—it will please her father so,” answered 
Mrs. Cahn, trying to speak confidently, but with what 
I felt was a rather uncertain inflection in her clipped 
tones. 

The next day found Florence sitting in the leather 
arm chair beside my study table. She was a slight, 
dark little thing with decidedly Jewish features, dis¬ 
figured by a sullen twisting of the mouth when I failed 
to see her side of the matter. 

“But can’t you see how it is?” she broke in pettishly. 
“I’m not Jewish and I don’t want to be. Papa’s not 
a good Jew either, or he wouldn’t have married a 
gentile. Though she’s been better to me than a lot of 
Jewish stepmothers might have been,” she added half 
defiantly. “And now just because he’s getting re¬ 
ligious in his old age, and is a trustee or something in 
your Temple, he’s spoiling everything by picking on 
Frank. Just because Frank’s not a Jew. Anyhow, 
Frank’s as much a Jew as I was brought up to be,” 
she ended sullenly. 

I had to remind her that I was not criticizing Frank 


66 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


or his religious beliefs. In fact, I told her that I ad¬ 
mired the young man’s fine forbearance in allowing 
her to have a minister of her own faith to perform the 
wedding service. But I did insist that as a rabbi in 
Israel I would be sadly out of place unless her mar¬ 
riage were a Jewish one. 

“Do you mean a wedding like those people down¬ 
town had last year?” she asked indignantly. “I 
couldn’t expect Frank to put up with all those old- 
fashioned things, that canopy and all that Hebrew, 
which I couldn’t understand either.” 

“It isn’t the canopy or even the Hebrew which makes 
a Jewish wedding,” I told her. “It would be very 
foolish for me to insist upon symbols which meant 
nothing to you or Mr. Dawson. But I can’t read a 
Jewish wedding service which doesn’t usher in a Jew¬ 
ish life lived in a Jewish home.” 

She began to understand and her dark, eager face 
flushed a little. “I don’t know anything about a Jew¬ 
ish home,” she confessed, and now there was no defi¬ 
ance in her voice. “I was just a baby when mamma 
died, you know. Anyhow,” again resentful, “I know 
a lot of Jews whose homes are just like other people’s. 
What’s the difference, anyhow?” 

“You will understand when children come,” I told 
her gently. “What sort of a home will you have ready 
for them? Have you decided to send your children 
to your husband’s church?” 

“No—I promised papa—and Frank wouldn’t ex¬ 
pect it of me.” 

“Then your husband wouldn’t object if you brought 
them up like Jew T s—at least sent them to our Sabbath 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 67 

school? You know how that would please your 
father.” 

“I couldn’t do that either. Frank’s people wouldn’t 
like it.” 

“Then will you have any religion in your home, I 
wonder?” 

“I don’t think so; but I don’t see that it’s any¬ 
body’s affair but our own,” growing more and more 
sullen. 

“It’s not my affair; but if you are going to found 
a home like that, I for one can’t act the part of a hypo¬ 
crite and perform a religious service for your marriage. 
If neither the Jewish nor the Christian religion mean 
anything to you and your husband, why don’t you go 
to a justice of the peace and have a civil marriage cere¬ 
mony? But why make a parody of my religion or 
the religion of my friend, the Methodist minister, by 
asking us to consecrate your two lives when you in¬ 
tend to turn your backs on the two of us forever?” 

“I know what you mean,” her voice no longer sullen. 
“But why should I bother about giving my children 
any religion when I never had any of my own after 
I was confirmed?” She rose to go, a wistful look in 
her dark eyes. “You should have got after me ten 
years ago; it’s too late to do anything now.” Her 
hand was on the knob; she turned to fling a last appeal 
over her shoulder. “It doesn’t make a bit of differ¬ 
ence to me, but it’s going to hurt papa. I wish you 
could help to make it all a little more Jewish for his 
sake.” 

But it was my friend, the Methodist minister, who 
performed the ceremony. 


68 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


III. The Battle of the Junkies 

If ever I leave the rabbinate I expect to enter the 
junk business. Edelman and his brother junkies have 
called upon me so often during the past year to arbi¬ 
trate their troubles that I feel I have an inside knowl¬ 
edge of the least understood profession in the world. 

It all began when Edelman, his wife and four little 
Edelmans of assorted sizes, came to our town last win¬ 
ter. Mr. Edelman was ill and applied to our charity 
society for help, although he assured us that he was 
willing to work and his was not a case of charity. He 
was a buyer and seller of junk, he said, and his faith¬ 
ful wife would do her best to see him established once 
more in the business world. She kept her promise 
only too well—but that comes later! 

At the same time Edelman told me how he had been 
driven from a town a little ways up-state by the per¬ 
secutions of his fellow junkies; that it was hard to 
find a junk dealer who really knew his trade and was 
a gentleman in the bargain, although he, God helping 
him, always tried to do both. And he concluded with 
the modest wish that the junk dealers of our town 
would accord him the welcome he deserved. 

I hoped so, too, and for a week or so after Edel¬ 
man started out a-j unking with the horse and wagon 
purchased from our charity committee’s loan all went 
well. The sisterhood gave Mrs. Edelman great bun¬ 
dles of discarded clothes for her husband to sell, and 
Mrs. Marcus, whose husband owned the largest junk 
yard in town, packed the four Edelman youngsters into 
her machine, took them shopping and fitted them out 
for the winter. Then Edelman descended upon me 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 


69 


bowed down with gratitude and several dishes. His 
wife had sent me some gefillte fish and kuchen for 
Shabbas. It was only a trifle after I had done so much 
for them, and, waving aside my thanks, he deposited 
himself beside my table and began to talk business. 
God be thanked, he was doing well buying junk from 
the farmers very reasonable as they drove into town 
—he caught them as they drove past his house and his 
wife was always willing to act as scout—and selling 
it again to Marcus, a member of my congregation, who 
had treated him like a long-lost brother, even to giving 
him a scale for weighing junk which must have cost 
every cent of ten dollars when new. Then more inti¬ 
mate details about the profession, with an accurate de¬ 
scription of every bargain he had made during the last 
three days—all this while I waited to attack my next 
week’s sermon or open my morning mail. 

After that Edelman called with painful regularity, 
sometimes with a flimsy excuse, sometimes on the pre¬ 
text that he just wanted me to know how quickly he 
was getting on his feet. But now beneath his descrip¬ 
tion of bargains which should have landed the trustful 
farmers in the poor-house—and Edelman in jail!—ran 
a current of criticism against those members of my 
congregation who happened to be junk dealers. 

For the native junkies resented the newcomer and 
tried in all the gentle ways known to junk dealers the 
world over to compel him to leave the overcrowded 
field. According to Edelman they even offered fabu¬ 
lous prices for scrap iron and old shoes in order to 
outbid him with his clients. Then congregational 
telephoning and business correspondence had to wait 
until Edelman finished his lecture on the regular price 


70 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


of such articles; and I didn’t have the heart to tell him 
to hurry. “Doctor,” he told me again and again with 
a quiver in his voice, “doctor, with every junky in town 
trying to cut me in the throat, I ain’t got a friend but 
you and God.” After that I just had to let my own 
affairs wait and listen to Edelman’s tribulations. 

Soon I began to hear the other side of the junk con¬ 
troversy. The small dealers never troubled me, but 
they complained to Marcus, who dropped in on a par¬ 
ticularly busy Friday morning to explain that our town 
was already overcrowded with buyers and sellers of 
junk who resented the newcomer. Not that Marcus 
himself had anything to fear from poor Edelman; but 
his wife had numerous relatives who were junkies, and 
after the manner of our co-religionists, was determined 
to help them fight their battles. 

“Rosie won’t invite my cousin, Abe Kraus’s wife, to 
her bridge parties,” Marcus told me with a grin for 
the weakness of womankind in general and his wife 
in particular. “But it gets her sore, she says, after 
all the Yehudim here done for the Edelman’s, to have 
Edelman doing so much better than Abe Kraus’s 
Moses. Moses is a young fellow and he just started 
a store and it ain’t right for a outsider like Edelman 
to do twicet the business just because he lives a little 
out of town and can get at them farmers first. And 
chutzpah! When I told Edelman we had too many 
junk dealers in town and he ought to get some place 
where it wasn’t so crowded, he says he’s satisfied here, 
but I can move if I want to. You’ve just got to speak 
to him, rabbi.” 

But before I could make peace between them, Edfel- 
man took affairs into his own grimy hands. Perhaps 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 


71 


Td better tell you about it in Mrs. Edelman’s own 
words. She told me all about it when I telephoned 
to their junk shop after reading in my morning paper 
that young Moses Kraus had been fined ten dollars 
and costs by our police judge for striking that lady and 
calling her unflattering names. Her story ran some¬ 
thing like this: 

“Honest, rabbi, it’s a shame for the goyim, and me 
and my husband trying to earn an honest living and 
asking nothing of nobody. Just ’cause those Mar¬ 
cus’s done a few little things for us, they think they 
own the earth; they tell us to get out but we won’t. 
Then that Marcus, that roshe, rents a store right across 
from our place and puts his nephew there so he can 
stop the farmers before we get at ’em. And, rabbi, 
there’s a gentleman named Mr. Durkin from a farm 
’way out on the Turner road, and we do a regular 
business with him. And yesterday he comes in to 
town and that Moses gets him before I do and tries 
to buy junk off’n him. And I come up, rabbi, as polite 
as I can, and says how he’s my customer; and Moses 
Kraus gets mad and calls me a name—I’d shame my¬ 
self to tell you it, rabbi!—and hits me; and I give him 
just a little push—a very small push, rabbi, ’cause I 
ain’t so strong as I was since I’m nursing the baby— 
and he falls over in the road on purpose; and while he 
dusts the dust off’n his pants, I buys Mr. Durkin’s 
junk. And my Joe he sold it yesterday—not to that 
gonoph, Marcus, believe me—for a good profit. So 
Joe says I shouldn’t try to have Moses arrested for 
insulting me and make rishus before the goyim. 

“And then a policeman comes to get me and says 
Moses has me arrested for knocking him down. So 


72 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


I tell the judge all about it, like I tell it to you, and the 
judge is a gentleman and fines Moses for fighting me. 

“Yes, rabbi, we’re all well, thanks God, and so soon 
I feel a little better—I’ve been sick in my nerves with 
all that trouble—I’ll make you some more gefillte fish 
and sent it up with Joe.” 

But the pugnacious junk lady never kept her prom¬ 
ise. The next week she packed up the four little 
Edelmans of assorted sizes and followed her husband 
to a town just across the state line where they intended 
to open a larger and a better junk shop. For Marcus 
had bought them out—at an enormous profit to Edel- 
man. 

“And what could I do?” he shrugged. “I couldn’t 
have those junkies making rishus all the time and that 
Edelman got them all excited. And my Rosie wanted 
I should do something for Moses Kraus; so I had to 
pay the Edelmans to move away. It wasn’t a healthy 
location for Moses, nebbich, with that Mrs. Edelman 
living right across the street 1” 

IV. The Night Watches 

Someone asked my nephew, aged six, the other day 
what he planned to be when he was a man, and I smiled 
rather complacently, I’m afraid, when the youngster 
piped back: “I’m going to be a rabbi just like uncle.” 
But my pride collapsed with a thud, when, on being 
questioned why he preferred my profession above all 
others, he answered that he wanted a job where he 
wouldn’t have to work except on Saturdays. The ad¬ 
miring family group grinned over the ancient joke; I 
smiled, too, but somewhat grimly. For although the 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 


73 


previous day had been a Wednesday, I had been far 
from idle. There had been letters and telephone calls 
in the morning, a Sisterhood meeting to coax into shape 
in the afternoon, an informal talk at a business men’s 
club dinner in the evening. Then, when I had finally 
donned bathrobe and slippers and was comfortably 
stretched out in the easy chair beside my study lamp, 
an uncut magazine in my hand, the telephone bell had 
jangled for the twentieth time that day, calling me 
from my rest with a summons that I could not ignore. 
A half hour later I stood wtih Adolph Frank at his 
mother’s bedside. She had been ailing for some 
months; now her son had called me to sit beside her 
until she died. 

There is nothing worth recording about Bella 
Frank’s life. There are, God be thanked, a score of 
women like her in every community, simple, quiet 
souls who do the day’s work smilingly, with a sort of 
divine patience, and, at the last, teach us their worth 
by leaving us helpless and bewildered at our loss. She 
was not a cultured woman as certain ambitious young 
ladies in my Monday afternoon study circle consider 
culture. She never crossed the threshold of a high 
school until her own children were old enough to ac¬ 
quire the higher education she herself had never tried 
to attain. Just a simple-hearted woman, loving her 
husband and children, serving them in the humble ways 
of her household, quick to respond to every call for 
charity, in short, the type we love to describe as “a 
mother in Israel.” Every Friday night she lit her Sab¬ 
bath candles, every Saturday morning she sat in the 
family pew, her children about her, until they left the 
home nest, one by one, the girls to go to homes of their 


74 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


own in another state, the two older boys to follow their 
professions in a distant city. Only Adolph, “her 
baby,” remained, a fine, lovable young fellow of twenty- 
five who turned a haggard face to me as I entered the 
death chamber. 

“She wanted you,” he told me briefly, and sank back 
in his seat beside the bed. 

Suffering though she was, Bella Frank managed to 
flash one of her old welcoming smiles to me as I took 
her hand. She even tried to speak, but the effort was 
too great and she shook her head. The room was very 
still as the three of us silently waited for the end. 

As morning broke she grew delirious; she imagined 
the absent children who had been hastily summoned 
had already returned and were bending over her pil¬ 
low; she greeted them by tender baby pet-names she 
had used in their infancy; Adolph must have remem¬ 
bered them for he winced at the foolish endearments 
sounding so strangely in that place of death. She 
spoke of his dead father, too, whom he could scarcely 
recall, and old and departed friends whom neither of 
us had ever known. She smiled as she chatted and 
both of us rejoiced that she was to depart in peace. 

But the respite from pain was all too short, and, as 
the gray dawn stole over the pillows, Adolph crept 
from the room unable to bear the sight of her suffer¬ 
ings. Dr. Crane, who had come to share our vigil, 
could do little; in the last extremity, the man of science 
was as helpless as I. In fact, it was to me that Adolph 
Frank turned for comfort when he was strong enough 
to join us again. 

“Can’t you do something for her?” he asked hoarsely, 
adding incoherently: “You’re her friend; you can’t 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 75 

bear to let her go on like that! As long as she has to 
go, why must she suffer so first?” 

I had no new answer for the boy; before the Great 
Mystery, I, too, was helpless and without understand¬ 
ing. “May God take her quickly,” was all that I could 
tell him in his agony. 

A strange look came into Adolph’s face. “People 
always pray when they want anything very badly, 
don’t they?” he asked, as simply as a child might have 
done. He fumbled for his chair beside the bed and 
hid his face in his hands. “God”—he sobbed—“God” 
—and could go no further. 

The physician had stepped out into the hall and we 
were alone with the sufferer. I tried to place my hand 
upon Adolph’s shoulder, but he pulled himself away 
and spoke harshly. 

“I want to pray and I can’t!” he said in a sort of 
strained wonder. “It’s so long since I tried—when 
I was a kid and she made me say ’em every single 
night. And now when I want to ask for something— 
I can’t.” 

I tried to comfort him but the words stuck in my 
throat. When a boy of fourteen he’d had prayers 
enough, both Hebrew and English, as part of his con¬ 
firmation studies; but I did not need his frantic con¬ 
fession to know that he had long since buried them 
away with his Sabbath school notebooks and berib- 
boned confirmation diploma. In a flash of sudden 
bitterness I felt how useless a thing the Judaism we 
teach our children has become unless we can help them 
to translate it into terms of daily life. Adolph had 
faithfully memorized certain passages from the Bible; 
he had learned the names of the kings of Israel; but 


76 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


somehow I and his other teachers had not given him 
what a certain stout old Scotchman once called “a grip 
on God.” In this first great crisis of his life, he groped 
in the dark without a staff to support him. All the re¬ 
ligious teachings of his Sabbath school days, all of his 
mother’s gentle piety, had not taught him how to pray. 

I do not know how long we sat there in the strained 
silence, broken only by the brisk ticking of the little 
dresser clock, which sounded peculiarly heartless just 
then, and the tortured breathing from the woman on 
the heaped-up pillows. At last the first rays of the 
sun struggled to pass the carelessly adjusted curtains 
and Bella Frank spoke to us, painfully but distinctly, 
her hands groping for Adolph until she held him fast. 

“Sonny,” she told him, “I’m going. Tell the chil¬ 
dren I’m sorry I couldn’t wait to see them.” Her voice 
trailed off and her hands dropped back upon the cover¬ 
let. 

The doctor bent over her and when he raised his head 
I read her sentence. “It is nearly over,” he said. 

I began to read the prayers for the dying; Adolph 
had long forgotten his meager Hebrew, but somehow 
the sonorous, rolling sentences seemed to bring him a 
little comfort. He knew, although he could find no 
words to plead for her, that his mother was dying as 
she had always hoped to die. Obeying a sudden im¬ 
pulse, I translated as I read; perhaps he might feel 
then that he was also praying. 

“Praised be Thou, O God, Lord of mercy and for¬ 
giveness,” ran the prayer. “Open to me the gates of 
righteousness; I will enter through them and praise the 
Lord!” And then the final confession of faith, which 
even Adolph was able to follow, the dying woman smil- 


IN THE RABBI'S STUDY 


77 


ing as his lips stumbled over the half-forgotten words, 
“Sh’ma Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echod.” 

We said no more for a moment for her eyes closed 
gently and she smiled a tender, contented smile. “Go 
thy way, for the Lord hath called thee,” I continued 
in my reading, “go thy way, and may the Lord be with 
theel” But I was not thinking of the happy dead; in 
my heart of hearts I prayed that He might be with 
Adolph Frank also, lest the boy should feel entirely 
alone in his grief. 


“EIGHT O’CLOCK SHARP!” 

A Dramatic Skit in One Scene 
CHARACTERS 

Mrs. Kahn, chairlady of the occasion 

Leonarah, her daughter 

Mr. Kahn, her husband 

Mrs. Freund 

Mrs. Applebaum 

Mrs. Sussman 

Birdie Sussman, her daughter 
Rabbi Seeder 
Mrs. Seeder 

Mr. Masseltov, the speaker of the evening 

Goldie Lobenstern, society reporter 

Tom, colored janitor of Temple, hired for the occasion 

Evie, his wife, busy in the cloak room 

Other Council Members, their husbands and guests. 

Time: About 8:30 on a warm spring evening. 

Place: The Century Club. 

{Brace your nerves and enter with me into an over¬ 
heated, overcrowded hall, made over for the occasion 
from ballroom into lecture hall. For the chairs, 
usually pushed against the wall for chaperoning 
dowagers, have been arranged in rows by the slow 
but dependable Tom, and, upon the platform near 
the piano, he has placed a small table on which stands 
78 


“EIGHT O'CLOCK SHARP!' 


79 


a silver vase of red carnations, a pitcher of water and 
a glass. The flowers, lent by Mrs. Kahn, suggest 
a festal evening; the water, refreshment for a public 
speaker. I said, “Brace your nerves.” Unless they 
thrive on excited shrieks, the sound of many voices 
trying to drown out others, the tinklings of the 
piano, very much out of tune, — but, says the house 
committee, as long as we rent out the hall and let 
everyone play on it, it's no use having it tuned, is 
there? So, if you enjoy excitement, you will stand 
quietly by and from the babel of sounds seek to 
piece enough dialogue to learn the reason for the 
fray. Which dialogue runs about as follows:) 

Mrs. Kahn. My Leonarah isn’t ready to start the 
program yet and I don’t care if it is past time to begin. 
She’s not in practice and if she wants to run over her 
piece a few times before she plays it for the audience, 
that’s her privilege. And suppose the tickets did say, 
“eight o’clock sharp.” Nobody ever believes what 
they read on tickets. (Over her shoulder to Leonarah, 
who is pounding the keys rather viciously.) How is it 
going, dearie? 

Leonarah. I told you I couldn’t do anything with 
this tin-pan, mamma. After I’ve been taking lessons 
all my life on a baby grand! 

Rabbi Seeder (coming up on the platform, plainly 
nervous, for he is a very punctual man). Go right 
ahead and play, anyhow, Miss Leonarah. We’re not 
any of us musical critics, you know. 

Mrs. Kahn (plainly offended). I tell you, Rabbi, 
my Leonarah is used to playing for music critics all 
her life; when she was in boarding school they always 


80 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


had her play for company and the professor in music 
said she was his star pupil if she’d only practice a 
little. Only she ain’t just herself tonight, ’cause she’s 
been going out so much she hasn’t had time to prac¬ 
tice. 

Mr. Kahn (who being related can sometimes be im¬ 
polite). For God’s sake, Lenie, stop that pounding 
and make up your mind whether you’re going to play 
or not. Here’s Mr. Masseltov coming in the front 
door now. He was here at eight prompt and you 
weren’t ready so he went out to reserve his berth for 
the ten o’clock train. {To give added weight to his 
argument.) We’re paying his expenses and if he 
misses it we’ll have to pay his room at the hotel extra; 
so we’ve got to get started right away and you’re the 
one to begin. Hurry up, now, and mamma can call 
the meeting to order. 

{He has grown rather sharp in his excitement; 
Leonarah gives him a look of mingled scorn 
and heartbreak before she buries her face in her 
handkerchief and retires into the cloak room; 
consternation as her sobs reach the audience, 
united with the consolations of the sympathetic 
Evie.) 

Evie {a pretty yellow girl dressed in the cast-off 
finery of the ladies present, as she is exclusive and 
works only for Temple members). Now, honey, don’t 
go crying and making your pretty eyes red. You is 
too pretty in that there new dress to take on so. {Sobs 
from the insulted pianist.) I reckon you is just feeling 
trifling this even’, ain’t you? And your pa done 
scolded you before everybody. And you trying to do 
your best. {Sobs.) Ain’t that the God’s truth? 


“EIGHT O'CLOCK SHARP!” 


81 


Yes’m, here’s your cloak, Miss Lennee, and your scarf. 
I don’t blame you one bit; I wouldn’t play neither if 
they all went on and insulted me. 

Mrs. Kahn (to her husband in the tone she usually 
reserves for their own home). Now you’ve done it! 

(To the others who cluster sympathetically around 
her.) No, it’s no use trying to calm her down; she’s 
always been so high-spirited and sensitive—just like 
me. Now who’ll we have to open the program? We 
can’t begin without music. 

Chorus. Of course, we can’t. Who’ll play then? 
Mr. Kahn’s talking to Mr. Masseltov at the door now 
and he looks awfully mad. Can’t you play something 
—oh, just anything—can’t you? 

Mrs. Kahn. Maybe you can play us just a little 
piece, Birdie. 

Birdie (sullenly). I’m all out of practice since I 
got engaged. 

Mrs. Appelbaum. Why, Birdie, wasn’t you playing 
that piece about bananas and all the latest songs the 
night we come over to see your mamma? 

Birdie. Well, I’m not enough in practice to play at 
a moment’s notice. I’m not going to play second fiddle 
to anybody. 

(She strolls haughtily off to take her place in the 
slowly gathering audience.) 

Mrs. Kahn. Then we’ll just have to begin with the 
second number. Your niece is here, isn’t she, Mrs. 
Freund? 

(Mrs. Freund nods and the program begins just 
an hour late. The first number is Mrs. 
Freund’s niece, Maxine, up from Chicago for 
a visit. She is well known in Jewish club cir- 


82 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


cles in her native city for her whistling special¬ 
ties and is always willing to oblige on any and all 
occasions. Now she holds the program up a 
precious ten minutes or more to do her stunt 
which includes imitations of birds , native and 
foreign , ending with her own original imitation 
of Ina Claire imitating Frances Starr.) 

Mrs. Appelbaum (fervently to Mrs. Freund). 
It’s a shame, Mrs. Freund, not to let a girl like that go 
on the stage. 

Mrs. Freund. That’s what I tell her; but she’s 
going with a nice young man now; he hasn’t anything 

yet, but his father—so- 

{And a shrug concludes that romance.) 

Mr. Masseltov {raging behind the scenes ). Am 
I next, Mr. Kahn? 

Mrs. Kahn. Our next number on the program will 
be a few little selections by Baby Schwartz. 

Mr. Masseltov ( desperate). Have them cut her 
out. I’ve got a thirty-minute speech prepared and- 

Mr. Kahn. Then cut down your speech. That 
Schwartz kid is my wife’s cousin’s child and a regiment 
couldn’t hold her off the platform. 

{The next number proves to be the inevitable 
“child marvel” in this case , “Baby Schwartz” 
who at fourteen still boasts the title under which 
she made her dibut in Sabbath school programs 
at the age of five. She is an undersized little 
girl with very thin legs , who first presents her 
own version of the “Spring Song” done in pink 
crepe and talcum powder , her sailor’s hornpipe 
which makes the ex-service men in the audience 
more grateful than ever that they didn’t join 




"EIGHT O'CLOCK SHARP !' 9 


83 


the navy, and her cute little impersonsations of 
Mary Pick ford and Theda Bara. She bows her¬ 
self off at last, bare legs, ruffles, baby stare and 
all, and Kahn, egged on by the now raving 
orator, begs his wife to speed up the program 
a little. But she is too busy to listen, being deep 
in consultation with Mrs. Sussman, chairlady 
of the refreshment committee. Mrs. Sussman 
is a regal creature in black net and diamonds 
and wears a large white bib apron as the badge 
of her authority, although she always manages 
to be otherwise occupied while the others pre¬ 
pare lunch.) 

Mrs. Sussman {in a very audible whisper). Tom 
wants to know if he should start serving the ice cream? 

Mrs. Kahn {just as audibly). Heavens, no! 
We’re only half through. And God knows how long 
he’s going to speak when he once gets started. 

{The speaker of the evening sinks back in his 
chair, speechless with conflicting emotions. The 
next number comes up and sings a solo about 
hunting for love and finding it not and stum¬ 
bling on forever in the darkness. She is a sweet 
girl and has a really charming voice; even the 
speaker of the evening has to admit it, and he 
would write himself among her heartiest admir¬ 
ers if she didn't spoil it all by accepting an en¬ 
core or two. By the time she has bowed herself 
off to really enthusiastic applause Mr. Mas- 
seltov is too pe.eved to listen to Moe Rashin- 
sky’s very popular dialect stories. Instead he 
slouches in his seat, muttering under his breath 
— but, then, he may be only rehearsing his 


84 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


speech. Then at last Mrs. Kahn comes to the 
front of the platform and all know by her too 
gracious smile that she is going to introduce the 
distinguished guest of the evening.) 

Mrs. Kahn. Ladies and gentlemen: It gives me 
the greatest pleasure to announce what you already 
know—that tonight we have with us Professor Mas- 
seltov, one of the first, if not the very first, of living 
Jewish orators. He comes to us with a message which 
we will do well to lay to our hearts. ( There is a stir 
in the back of the hall; but Mrs. Kahn, who gets 
rattled when speaking if she looks at her audience, con¬ 
tinues to fix her gaze upon the bunch of red carnations 
and does not seem to notice it.) A message which we 
will do well to lay to our hearts. He will speak on 
Ethics in the Talmud, and I know we will learn a great 
deal from his message. Ladies and gentlemen, I take 
great pleasure in bringing before you our most distin¬ 
guished guest, Professor Morton Masseltov. 

Goldie ( from her place in the front row). How 
does he spell it—two s’s? 

{Opens her notebook with an important air.) 

Mrs. Seeder. Spell it any way you want to. The 
newspaper will get it wrong anyhow. I know they 
always try to spoil my husband’s sermons when they 
print them. 

{A long silence. No speaker, distinguished or 
otherwise, appears. Mrs. Kahn looks plainly 
annoyed.) 

Mrs. Kahn. Will the professor please come for¬ 
ward? We are so anxious to hear him. 

Tom {appearing in the rear entrance, a kitchen 
apron about his ample waist). Are you all waiting 


“EIGHT O'CLOCK SHARP!" 


85 


for that stranger gentleman with the long beard? He 
come in here a minute ago for a sandwich. 

Mrs. Kahn. Well, where is he? 

Tom. Oh, he’s done gone. He told me he had to 
catch a train. 

Mrs. Sussman ( bustling forth ). Anyhow, we ain’t 
come for nothing. ’Cause we’ve got perfectly grand 
refreshments. 

Mrs. Kahn (a little later , to a sympathetic group 
gathered about her table ). Such chutzpah! And we 
paid all his expenses! 


SLOW CURTAIN 


UNHALLOWED CANDLES 

The Story of a Modern Sabbath 

E VERYTHING in the little apartment looked very- 
new and bridey, to use that unliterary but most 
expressive word . . . walls and woodwork shining, 
furniture just as highly polished as when it had stood 
in the showrooms; this Greuze head in its dainty frame 
plainly a wedding present, the book ends on the daven¬ 
port table likewise. While on the gateleg table, a gift 
from Aunt Frieda, stood a beaten brass bowl of crimson 
roses. Myer had sent them up that morning—“for our 
wedding anniversary” ran the card that still rest upon 
them. 

It wasn’t exactly a wedding anniversary, for the 
young people hadn’t been married for more than eight 
months. But Myer was an attentive husband, and, 
knowing that his wife, like most women, wanted him 
to be sentimental as long after the wedding day as 
possible, humored her in her whim to hold the twen¬ 
tieth of every month sacred; they had been married 
on the twentieth of June, and here it was bleak and 
windy March and he still sent her roses. No wonder 
Celia considered herself a lucky young woman as she 
put the finishing touches to the dining-room table, hum¬ 
ming as she worked. 

It was to be the first “anniversary” in their new 
home. There had been a long wedding trip, then a visit 
to Celia’s relatives, then a few weeks in a hotel while 
86 


UNHALLOWED CANDLES 


87 


furnishing the apartment. Celia was glad that she had 
decided it would be absurd to have a maid to help her 
keep the three pretty rooms in order; she realized that 
tonight it would be embarrassing to have a stranger 
witness the little ceremony she felt she would perform 
self-consciously, since it was so new to her. But she 
knew she would not feel self-conscious before her 
husband. 

Myer was an orphan, not especially attached to the 
uncle and aunt who had educated him since his early 
boyhood. Celia was rather glad that he did not expect 
her to be especially nice to his relatives; they had 
welcomed her into the family graciously enough, given 
several elaborate affairs in her honor, and sent a most 
adequate check for a wedding present, but the girl 
realized that they could never be her people. They 
had come to America too late to lose their foreign 
stiffness, their self-consciousness before the native 
born; she felt that they secretly criticized her to Myer 
for her bobbed hair, the knickers she wore for golfing; 
above all, for not being more “Jewish.” 

For Celia frankly belonged to that ever-growing 
group known as “Kaddish Jews.” She usually attended 
Temple with her mother on the fall holy days; she 
never neglected to say Kaddish for her father; she 
even belonged to the Junior Council, since they gave 
lovely dances, and Celia was too proud a little body 
to try to attend certain Junior League parties where 
Jews were not exactly welcome; and she had once 
knitted two sweaters and embroidered six handker¬ 
chiefs for the bazaar for Jewish war sufferers, which 
totals the extent of Celia’s Jewishness. 

Little by little she learned from Myer that he had 


88 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


come from what he called “a regular Jewish home.” 
Until the demands of haughty maids forced his aunt 
to compromise or do her own work, that lady had 
always kept a kosher house; even now certain for¬ 
bidden delicacies never appeared on her table; aunt 
and uncle always attended services and served on vari¬ 
ous boards; they always had a family Seder, and aunt 
had always insisted upon Myer being at home whenever 
possible on Friday night for the family meal. Myer 
was not especially enthusiastic as he told Celia how 
uncle said Kiddush and aunt blessed her candles; but, 
then, Myer was not enthusiastic about anything except 
baseball and pinochle and the Republican party—just 
before election day. He was just an everyday Ameri¬ 
can, not given to sentiment or overenthusiasms of any 
sort. 

But with Celia it was different. A bit she had seen 
in the movies, a chapter from one of ZangwilPs novels 
—this she suspected was real Jewish life. She who had 
never seen her mother or any other woman light the 
Sabbath candles felt oddly cheated; her romantic soul 
grieved that she as a child had never hunted for the 
Afikomon, or opened the door for Elijah to enter and 
bless the Passover feast. Her eyes softened as she told 
herself that her own children would never be cheated 
of their Jewish birthright. 

She did not tell any of these musings to Myer, for 
she feared he would laugh. He had a way of laughing 
at many of her fancies, but she did not feel hurt; for 
she staunchly believed that he was too fine and sensi¬ 
tive to show his real feelings even to her; that his 
teasing laughter covered the deepest emotions. It is a 
mistake many a young wife makes about her husband 


UNHALLOWED CANDLES 


89 


and loves to cherish even after she learns that she has 
been mistaken. For women love to pet and cuddle 
their worn-out illusions as little girls still nurse their 
old favorites even after being chided that they are too 
old to play with dolls any more! 

But Celia had been married only eight months and 
her illusions were still rosy and healthy. This was the 
first Friday evening in their very new home and she 
felt the wedding anniversary date lent it an added 
consecration. During the entire afternoon she had 
vibrated between stove and cook book, between kitchen 
table and telephone, calling up her amused mother for 
just another bit of advice. For Celia, although any¬ 
thing but an experienced cook, had resolved that not 
a bit of bakery goods would pollute her first Sabbath 
table; she knew, without Myer’s boasting of his aunt’s 
cooking, that the worthy lady had always done her own 
Shabbas baking. 

The table was set at last, the lights turned low on 
the gas stove; Celia picked out the only dress Myer 
had thought to admire from her trousseau, a soft brown 
affair with bands of daring Russian embroidery; she 
did extra things to her hair which he preferred to see 
under a net; she clasped on the necklace her husband’s 
aunt and uncle had given her for an engagement pres¬ 
ent, a piece of jewelry which had always meant a good 
deal to Myer after seeing the receipted bill of a very 
exclusive jeweler. Then out to the dining-room to add 
the last touches to the festal board—the brass bowl of 
crimson roses and the two tall candlesticks from the 
bookcase. 

“It’s lucky I got them instead of another pair of 
book ends,” considered the bride, as she fitted her first 


90 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Shabbas candles into the sockets. From the top drawer 
of the buffet she drew out the prayer book she had 
borrowed from one of her Junior Council friends. Yes, 
there were prayers for the home. Friday night prayers 
among the rest. She wasn’t so sure of the Hebrew, 
even with the book before her, after her friend’s les¬ 
sons; well, she’d do her best and Myer wouldn’t mind 
even if she had to stumble now and then. He’d love 
her just as much, since she was doing her best to give 
him a Shabbas such as he had always known before 
his marriage. 

At the sound of his key in the door she ran to meet 
him. A kiss—“the roses were lovely, dear!” and they 
were in the dining room. She would not give him time 
to take off his overcoat, she was so childishly eager to 
see him take in his surprise. 

Myer stood before the prettily decked table, his eyes 
taking in the best embroidered linen, the most festal 
silver, including a silver cup at his place that he had 
never seen before, the flowers, the tall candles. His 
brows puckered with bewilderment. 

“You didn’t tell me we were going to have company. 
And you didn’t set for any extra. Who’s coming?” 

“Nobody. I want to have our .first Shabbas just for 
us—the first Shabbas in our new home.” 

“Shabbas! What put that into your head?” 

“I thought at your aunt’s home—she surely kept 
Shabbas for you and you loved it,” she faltered. 

“Sure, she had Shabbas and the rest of the old dope,” 
he agreed dryly. “And uncle was always yelling at 
me for trying to sneak away early to go to a picture 
show with the bunch. Or he’d be sore that I was trying 
to get out of going to Cheder every day, or aunt was 


UNHALLOWED CANDLES 


91 


giving me fits for mixing her meat and milk dishes. 
Thank God, you weren’t brought up in that kind of 
Judaism. I guess I liked you from the start for being 
so American and different from my folks.” 

She struggled to keep back the disappointed tears 
which filled her eyes. “But—Shabbas! I thought we 
could celebrate it every week, the way they do in 
Jewish books, lighting candles and you making a bless¬ 
ing, and everything.” 

He laughed, and this time she knew that his laughter 
was not the cover for tender and yearning thoughts. 

“Good night! I don’t want any of that junk around 
my home. It’s all right to belong to a Temple, maybe, 
but I believe we Jews ought to be like everybody else, 
and that if we mind our own business and are straight 
with everybody that’s all we need. That’s my religion, 
anyhow. Now, come on and bring on your supper. 
It’s a sort of anniversary tonight, like you reminded 
me yesterday morning, so I got two seats for the 
‘Follies’ and if we don’t hurry we’ll miss the first 
number.” 

Something in her step, no longer tripping and young, 
as she came from the kitchen bearing the soup stirred 
vague compunctions within him. 

“Say, it’s all the same to me if you light those can¬ 
dles and make a fuss,” he said good-naturedly. 

Celia shook her head. “I don’t want to now,” was 
all she answered. 

. . . The candlesticks, a most appropriate wedding 
gift to a Jewish bride, still stand upon the bookcase. 
But since that night Celia has never wanted to light 
them again. 


STAIRS 

The Tragedy of an Immigrant 

H E worked in a hospital down on the lower East 
Side, doing the most menial work in such an 
absent-minded way, that it is not likely either his 
pride or his soft white hands suffered overmuch. But 
when he cleaned the dingy reception room or scrubbed 
the long flight of white stairs, he could not forget that 
he dwelt in a House of Pain; keenly sensitive by nature, 
now morbidly sympathetic because of his own suffer¬ 
ings, he suffered a daily crucifixion with those who sat, 
wan-faced and hopeless, waiting to see their sick or 
learn the verdict from physician or nurse. And the 
hundreds of feet forever tramping up and down his 
white stairs left them disgustingly dirty, sometimes in 
less than an hour after a scrubbing. . . . Somehow 
that hurt him the most. 

Those who came up and down the stairs never noticed 
the thin, silent man, his tragic eyes glowing in his white 
face. Doctors, always in a hurry, spick and span 
nurses, women with shawls and bearded men, they all 
passed him by, knowing nothing of his story, never 
dreaming why he looked after them with a fanatical 
hate gleaming in his eyes if their shoes left a single 
stain upon his freshly scrubbed stairs. Even if they 
had, they who knew the East Side would merely have 
shaken their heads in understanding pity and passed 
on. For Hyman’s was an old story with them . . . 
as old as Israel. 


92 


STAIRS 


93 


Hyman Rubinowitz had thought himself fortunate 
during those now almost legendary days before the war 
that his lame and twisted foot had exempted him from 
military service. He had heard too many tales of the 
horrors the Czar’s army held for the Jew not to rejoice 
that in the sudden madness that shook the world he was 
allowed to remain at home with his young wife and 
three little children. Life went on very placidly for a 
little space. Hyman, the poverty-stricken Yeshibah 
student, rich only in learning, had wedded the daughter 
of the wealthiest Jewish merchant in the place; now 
he still spent long hours over his precious books while 
his energetic young wife carried on her father’s trade. 
Enjoying a comfortable home, free from all cares, re¬ 
joicing in his family, Hyman smiled contentedly in his 
Gan Eden and declared that God was good. 

It is too long a story—and far too commonplace!— 
to follow the steps which led Hyman from the quiet 
corner of the Beth Hamidrash to the misery-sodden 
hospital of the East Side of New York. One misfortune 
followed another, the first “hard times,” the falling 
away of customers, the reluctant spending of the sav¬ 
ings which had seemed so stout a security against 
accident and want. Hunger came—for now money 
could not buy food—and pestilence, since the physi¬ 
cians were far away healing wounded men that they 
might rise from their beds and wound and slay their 
enemies. And when at last a war-weary world went 
mad in its frantic joy and shouted “Peace!” even then 
Israel knew no peace, for a more dreadful war began 
against the Jew. 

Night after night Hyman would wake in his bed and 
live over the horror of the pogrom that had robbed 


94 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


him of his wife and children. He could remember a 
great deal of it, fragments here and there, like jagged 
bits of a child’s puzzle, which when placed together 
present a perfect picture. There were mad cries— 
frantic searching for a hiding place—a bolted door— 
which crashed in—devils maddened with their lust to 
slay—then a blackness that blotted out the agony for 
a while. There was a long gap after he regained his 
consciousness in which he must have raved like a torn 
animal over what he found on the floor beside him, 
the dreadful things he tried to recognize for his wife and 
children. But months after in America he remember¬ 
ing doing one mad, futile thing: he had staggered to 
a pail of water in the corner; but instead of wiping 
his own wounded forehead he had started to scour the 
red-stained floor. When neighbors who had escaped 
the mob found him they could scarcely persuade him 
to come away with them. He knew that his wife had 
always kept her floor spotless, he said, but now he 
could not get it clean. 

Followed the long agony of waiting in a distant port, 
which he reached after terrible hardships, until his 
passport could be vised. At first he had protested that 
he wished to remain with his dead; but he was still 
young, less than thirty, and life was still strong in his 
heart. In America, he dreamed, he might forget the 
red horror he could not wash from the floor; in Amer¬ 
ica there was safety for the Jew and peace. And he 
did not ask for much—only a quiet corner in some 
Beth Hamidrash where he might sit and study—and 
forget. 

In New York he found there were too many like 
him, too many unfitted for active life in a very active 


STAIRS 


95 


world. And in America, he soon learned, there is little 
of the tradition that the Jew who gives his life to the 
Torah also serves and need not toil for his bread. Not 
very tactfully—for how can an overburdened charity 
worker be tactful in these busy days?—he was told 
that an able-bodied man must earn his own living in 
America. His older brother, a presser with whom he 
made his home, repeated the fact with added emphasis. 
If Hyman wouldn’t work, he said, he’d have to go 
elsewhere to live. And this Hyman feared to do. The 
last year had left him very bruised and timid; more 
like a sick child that fears the dark than a normal man, 
he longed to be with his own kin. And he had grown 
strangely attached to his brother’s youngest child, 
Fannie, a tot of four, who made sunshine in the dark 
tenement, and reminded him of his own little Rosie, 
who had laughed and played until the dark days of 
hunger and want had changed her into a listless shadow. 

There is little to do for an untrained worker, espe¬ 
cially a lame foreigner who knows no English. In the 
days when Hyman went wearily from place to place 
in search of work, native-born Americans, many of 
them men of education, not a few ex-service men, also 
followed the same weary quest. It was only through 
the kind offices of the same hurried charity official 
who had first ordered Hyman to look out for himself 
that he was able to find employment. The work was 
in a hospital, the worst possible place for a man with 
torn and quivering nerves; but poverty must not be 
squeamish and Hyman felt himself a beggar. Besides, 
the hospital was near enough to his brother’s home to 
allow him to have his lunch there every day. This 
meant he could spend a little more time with Fannie, 


96 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


hold her on his lap, tell her the old Jewish fairy tales 
which had delighted his own children in those golden, 
dreamlike days. 

Then, a little before one, back to the hospital and 
the job he hated worst of all, cleaning the long flight 
of white stairs that led into the reception room. It 
hurt his back, for he was anything but strong; and 
he soon learned to be afraid of the task since it stirred 
the memories that so often woke him, shivering and 
sweating with terror in the dead of night. Then he 
would steal to the cot where little Fannie slept with 
her older brother, carry the child back to bed with him 
and finally quiet himself by listening to her peaceful 
breathing. But he could not have little Fannie at the 
hospital with him, and he was always frightened while 
scrubbing the stairs. Then he would remember another 
floor at which he had worked frantically until his neigh¬ 
bors dragged him away. 

Once when he was feeling particularly tired and his 
head hurt him more than usual, he spoke to his brother 
about finding him another job. “I know a little Eng¬ 
lish now,” he boasted. “I am not so green.” 

“You don’t know enough to hurt you,” was the un¬ 
gracious answer. “You stay where you are. The pay 
ain’t bad for a greener and nowadays you’re lucky to 
get any work.” 

“But the stairs,” stammered Hyman, wishing he 
might unburden his heart, but too afraid of his brother’s 
usual reaction to speak frankly, “the stairs are always 
dirty and they expect me to keep them clean. I clean 
them every afternoon on my hands and knees and as 
soon as I get them white the people come in with dirty 
shoes.” 


STAIRS 


97 


His brother shrugged hopelessly. “You must be 
crazy,” he commented cheerfully. “You do your work 
what you’re paid for and you should worry how long 
it lasts. When I press a pair pants, do you think I 
lose sleep worrying how they’ll fit? You’ll get over 
that if you’re long in America.” 

“If I didn’t have to work by a hospital,” Hyman 
was growing more and more apologetic. “I see such 
things! Last week a boy come in with his face—” he 
shuddered. “It makes me sick.” 

“You keep your mind on your work and don’t look 
at the patients all the time,” advised his brother, turn¬ 
ing to his Yiddish paper with an air of boredom. “I 
don’t like my boss neither, but jobs ain’t never perfect.” 

“If I didn’t have to keep the stairs clean!” Hyman 
mumbled, then smiled as little Fannie pushed a stump 
of a pencil into his hand. Until her bedtime he kept 
her laughing and crowing over the grotesque figures he 
drew upon her slate. 

He was scrubbing the hospital stairs the next after¬ 
noon when his sister-in-law stumbled through the 
swinging doors, a familiar little figure in her arms. He 
turned and stared at her with eyes growing blank with 
horror; slowly his brain filmed the picture that so often 
tortured his sleepless nights. 

“My Fannie,” shrieked the mother. “She cut her 
hand—terrible—see. She’s dying. Get me a doctor 
—quick! ” 

Love, stronger than all his horror, made Hyman 
reach for the wounded, reddening hand. Suddenly he 
dropped it with the cry of a torn animal and flung him¬ 
self upon his knees beside the pail of soapy water. 
Wringing out his rag mechanically, he began to scrub 


98 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


the stairs which would never look white to him again. 

“They got Fannie, too—the killers got my Fannie, 
too!” he repeated again and again in a low, dreadful 
monotone. “I can’t wash the blood off—it’s too red.” 

.... “Sure, the kid’s all right,” said the brisk 
young woman at the desk that evening as the night 
clerk questioned her concerning the afternoon’s excite¬ 
ment. “Fooling with the butcher knife when her 
mother wasn’t on the job, but Dr. Isaacson fixed it up 
in a minute with sticking plaster. But her uncle’s gone 
sure. I thought they’d never get him out of here. He 
was just bound to keep on. scrubbing the front stairs.” 
She jammed on her hat, took out her vanity bag and 
powdered her nose. “Have to hurry—a date at the 
movie,” she said, as she fastened her near-mink choker. 

“I always thought he was nuts,” commented the 
night clerk. “With those crazy eyes and everything. 
Why don’t they keep them kind on the other side where 
they belong?” 


A DAY IN SHUSHAN 

Telling of the Aftermath of Queen Esther’s Heroism 

Q UEEN ESTHER stood at the window of her apart¬ 
ments and her fair face was as pale as the pearls 
that lay about her throat and wreathed her shining, 
dark hair. Her eyes were black with horror and her 
hands clenched and unclenched themselves in her great 
agony: yet because of her the Jews had triumphed over 
their enemy. . . . 

She had always been a timid, gentle girl, the orphan 
cousin of Mordecai, destined one day to wear the crown 
of Persia’s vast empire. Those who spoke of her in 
awed whispers after the king had chosen her for his 
bride often recalled her many acts of kindness when 
she had dwelt among them; this one told of finding 
her weeping one morning in her garden over a tiny bird 
that had fallen from its nest and that now lay cold 
and stark in her hand; another had seen her binding 
the torn foot of a wretched cur, which tormenting boys 
had driven whining to her side; and Miriam, the old 
herb-seller in the corner of the market place, never 
wearied of the story of the girl Hadassah (as she was 
called among her own people) and the blind beggar. 

“Once he stumbled in the roadside before Mordecai’s 
house,” said Miriam, “and would have fallen had she 
not caught him and raised him to his feet. And she 
bade him rest upon the doorstep and gave him bread 
to eat and wine to drink. It was just before the Sab- 
99 


100 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


bath and she had no time to go to the wine merchant 
before the sunset and the time for the evening meal 
was nigh. And when Mordecai rebuked her, ha, ha,” 
and the ancient wife’s laugh rose high and trembling, 
“she looked at him with those big violet eyes of hers, 
and said: ‘But, cousin, is it not better to feed the hun¬ 
gry than to keep the Sabbath?’ Mordecai repeated 
her words to my husband that evening in the synagogue 
—just a child but even then like a queen in her kind¬ 
liness and pity.” 

And it was to this Esther, this tender woman soul so 
filled with love and pity for the helpless and the weak, 
that Mordecai told the tale of their people’s peril. 

“Think not that you shall escape,” Mordecai warned 
the pale queen. “For when it is known that you are 
my cousin, you, too, will feel the hatred of Haman. 
You are a Jewess and when the day Haman has set for 
our death dawns, the soldiers of Haman will drag you 
forth even from this safe spot.” And his eyes looked 
scornfully about the rich hall with its draperies of 
purple and its couches of ivory and gold. “You shall 
not escape even in the king’s house,” he told her and 
turned to depart. 

But Esther clung to him weeping. “I have concealed 
my birth and my people only because it is your will,” 
she said. “If evil come to the Jews I will not be silent. 
For how can I live if my people perish!” But for all 
her brave words she trembled as she spoke, for she 
had always been a timid girl and her royal state had 
brought her little courage. “Yet how dare I face the 
king and his certain wrath if I come to him unsum¬ 
moned? I do not want to die! ” 

A look of scorn flashed over Mordecai’s quiet face. 


A DAY IN SHUSH AN 


101 


“Yet you will not risk your life to save others who are 
marked for the slaughter ?’ 7 In sudden anger he seized 
her arm and dragged her toward the casement. “Look 
in the street beyond the strong gates of your palace,” 
he commanded harshly. “See those old men and help¬ 
less women and little children—all doomed to die on 
the day Haman has marked for our slaughter. They 
stand no little distance away, but you have keen eyes 
and may recognize some of them—unless your glory 
has blinded you and you no longer know the faces of 
your old friends and neighbors.” 

Then Esther recognized many of her old friends and 
neighbors as they stood without the gates, waiting and 
praying that Mordecai should bring them good tidings 
from the queen. 

“There is old Miriam, the market-woman,” she fal¬ 
tered. “I remember how she used to bake me cakes 
and give me flowers from her garden when my dear 
mother died. And there is Rachel, the tanner’s wife, 
with her baby in her arms. And poor old Seth—can 
that little fellow beside him be his grandson?” Mor¬ 
decai nodded. “He was but a little baby when I left 
your house. The soldiers of Haman must not shed this 
innocent blood,” she cried fiercely, and drew herself 
up to her slender height as though herself defying the 
assassins of her people. 

“A soldier’s sword is without pity,” Mordecai told 
her quietly. “Unless you go before the king and win 
his word that our people shall not perish, the streets 
of Shushan will run with innocent blood. And that 
blood will be upon your head because you did not risk 
your own life that many might live through your 
courage.” 


102 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Esther’s eyes were wide with horror as though they 
already beheld the massacre which was to turn the 
Jews’ quarter into a reeking shambles. “I cannot let 
them die,” she murmured. “I cannot let them die.” 

“Once,” Mordecai reminded her, “once I found you 
weeping over a wounded dove. Once, although you 
were a little maid, you defied some rough boys who 
sought to stone a whining dog. Has your heart grown 
so hard beneath your royal robes that it no longer beats 
in sympathy for the wounded and persecuted?” 

Esther turned to him and the look of high courage 
in her eyes shone through her tears. “I have not grown 
less tender because the king has chosen me above all 
women,” she answered. “Although a queen I am still 
the girl you knew.” Her bosom rose and fell quickly 
beneath the gold embroidered tissues of her tunic. “I 
will face the king lest these feeble ones perish. And if 
he will not hear my prayer and will not grant our 
people the mercy of life, it is well that he should hand 
me over to the executioner. Better that I should sleep 
the sleep of death, rather than lie sleepless upon my 
couch night after night with the sound of their crying 
in my ears. Yea, I will go before the king and if I 
perish, I perish.” 

Then Mordecai kissed her and blessed her, and he 
wept also, for she was like his own child and very dear 
to him. And at her command he called together every 
Jewish soul in all Shushan and bade them put on sack¬ 
cloth and ashes and fast and pray, that God should 
soften the heart of the king when Esther stood before 
him. And Esther and her maidens also fasted and 
prayed until the hour drew near when she laid aside 
her robes of mourning and bade them deck her that 


A DAY IN SHUSH AN 


103 


she might shine like a star in all her beauty as she 
stood before the king. 

The scrolls that learned scribes wrote in those days 
tell us how the king listened to Esther’s petition. They 
tell us that when her courage failed her as she bowed 
before the throne, she did not speak of the matter that 
lay upon her, but begged the king to come to a banquet 
she had prepared for him. And here she denounced 
Haman to the king, her husband, and declared that if 
Haman gave the Jews over to death, she would also 
die, since she was also of the house of Israel. All this 
do the scrolls tell, but on one thing they are silent. For 
no one knew how Esther wept after her triumph except 
Dinah, her favorite handmaid, who tended her in her 
chamber after the other maidens had left her upon her 
couch. 

Esther, even more beautiful in her royal robes of 
blue and purple than on the day when Ahasuerus had 
chosen her above the fairest women of his vast empire, 
had stood before the king at her banquet, beseeching 
him to turn Haman’s hate aside and avert the shedding 
of innocent blood. Ahasuerus, swayed by her beauty 
and her tears, had denounced Haman and sent him 
forth to die the death he had planned for the Jew 
Mordecai. And Mordecai was appointed prime min¬ 
ister in his place. With the king’s own ring upon his 
finger Mordecai had left the royal presence and had 
gone forth to strike terror into the hearts of those who 
had planned to torture and slay and pillage the Jews 
of Shushan. 

And yet Esther, tossing upon her couch of gold and 
ivory, could not sleep. She had saved her people; she 
had raised her cousin to a place of power; above all, 


104 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


the king she had always feared had proved himself to 
be a loving and a gentle husband. Yet she wept and 
Dinah, the little handmaid, could not comfort her. 

“I grieve for Haman,” Esther told her at last. “I 
know my cousin Mordecai would chide me for my 
tears, for he was a wicked man and deserved his death. 
But he was not wholly evil; at the banquet he spoke 
to me of his two youngest sons and boasted of their 
beauty and their skill in archery. I must weep when 
I think of his wife and his sons who lament his death, 
for he was not wicked to them.” 

“But, lady,” said the little handmaid, “did you not 
hear that Hainan’s sons all died with him upon the 
gallows he had erected for Mordecai?” 

Esther’s heart sickened at the news, but she lived 
in a cruel age and she realized that no Jew should 
mourn that the root and branch of such a hated house 
should be forever destroyed. “And it is better,” she 
said, “that Haman and his house should die for his 
sins, if his blood save the lives of our innocent people.” 

“Not only Haman paid the penalty,” answered the 
little handmaiden, and her voice rang with pride, “not 
only Haman and his cursed sons suffered for seeking 
to bring us low. Look into the streets, lady, and see 
how our people, strengthened by the might of Mordecai, 
are slaying and pillaging their enemies—behold how 
the Jews slaughter the Persians!” 

Then Esther left her couch and looked from the 
window out across the moonlight to the street beyond 
the palace gates. And she covered her face with her 
hands at what she saw, for she was a gentle creature, 
and the thought of blood and suffering troubled her 
soul and wrenched her heart. 


A DAY IN SHUSH AN 


105 


“I risked my very life to go before the king that the 
innocent of my people might be spared,” she cried, 
“and now the Jews in their turn shed innocent blood 
and take revenge upon their enemies.” ... In the 
hour of her triumph, Esther, the great queen, hid her 
face and wept like a little child. 


“A STAR—FOR A NIGHT” 

A Purim Reminiscence 

T HE rabbi’s wife, dusting out the bookcases last 
spring, found a small pile of yellowing newspaper 
clippings, the top one bearing the picture of a girl with 
laughing eyes and tragic mouth. She laid them upon 
her husband’s desk, wondering a little. 

“Who is she?” asked the rabbi’s wife. 

The rabbi frowned a little. “Oh, a girl who acted 
‘Esther’ in a crazy Purim play I gave my first year in 
the rabbinate,” he answered shortly. He dropped the 
dusty papers into his scrap basket and opened a book, 
but he did not read another word all afternoon. 

Rabbi Thieler was very young and very ambitious; 
perhaps that is why he still believed in Purim pro¬ 
grams: good old-fashioned Purim plays and festive 
songs and dances, not a moving picture for the Sabbath 
School, as the fashion goes nowadays, or a hodge-podge 
of aesthetic poses and miscellaneous recitations from 
the different classes. And because this was his first 
year in Mortonville he swore to himself that he would 
give them a Purim program that would make them sit 
up and take notice, incidentally earning enough money 
to furnish the Sabbath school library, to say nothing 
of undying fame for himself as author and producer 
of his Purim masterpiece. 

Followed the usual horror of working up a Purim 
106 


“A STAR—FOR A NIGHT* 


107 


play, when all the criticism and nearly all the work 
falls upon the shoulders of the devoted fool who has 
vowed to see it through or perish in the attempt: bully¬ 
ing an incompetent cast into attending rehearsals, 
smoothing the feelings of irate mothers whose children 
either were slighted by too insignificant parts or over¬ 
burdened with too many lines to learn; costumes to 
make; properties to beg, borrow or steal; tickets to 
sell. Yes, tickets! For the affair was to be given in 
the town Opera House, with a real curtain, a real 
orchestra and everything. 

No, not everything! Always in stories, and some¬ 
times in real life, one of the leading characters in an 
amateur performance falls ill exactly two days before 
the performance. Only in the case of poor young 
Rabbi Thieler’s first play it was at the dress rehearsal 
that Minnie Stein arrived with the devastating news 
that her cousin Sylvia, who was to play Queen Esther, 
had developed diphtheria. Her throat had been hurt¬ 
ing for several days and there had been talk of an 
understudy; but Sylvia had insisted until the last that 
she would feel all right by the day of the play, and, 
as Sylvia was the daughter of the president of the 
congregation, she had had her way as usual. And here 
it was almost Erev Purim, four o’oclock on Wednesday 
afternoon, to be accurate, and the beautiful programs, 
damp from the printers, announced the play “at eight 
o’clock sharp” Thursday evening! 

Rabbi Thieler, who was on the stage directing the 
dress rehearsal—he knew little about directing a play, 
but couldn’t find anybody in town to do it for him— 
sat down weakly on the pulpit chair, borrowed from 
the Temple to serve as a throne, and looked helplessly 


108 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


at his disappointed cast. It was a lovely company of 
amateurs, too, from the kindergarten tots who had 
expected to act as pages to several of the young lady 
volunteer teachers who had finally been persuaded to 
appear as Queen Sylvia’s ladies in waiting. And now 
Sylvia couldn’t be Queen Esther and the play was 
ruined. 

“Can’t one of you girls take her place?” cried the 
harassed rabbi. “You’ve been at the rehearsals and 
you know the lines almost as well as Miss Sylvia did. 
One of you must help me out. We’ve got to give the 
play after all the trouble and expense we’ve put into it.” 

Minnie Stein gave a little cluck of horror. “Oh, 
doctor,” she gushed, “none of us girls would have the 
nerve to take an important part like that, even if we 
knew it. It was different with poor Sylvia-—she’s taken 
elocution lessons ever since she could walk almost and 
she’s a regular actress. But none of us have the sense 
to do it like she could.” 

The rabbi agreed, but was too polite to say so aloud. 
He looked over the Sabbath school children huddled 
in disappointed little groups, their faces sad above their 
cheesecloth finery and glass beads, and for a moment 
he forgot how much the play was to have meant to him. 
He had wanted to test himself out—to show that he 
could put over an entertainment that would be the talk 
of Mortonville generations still unborn—and he had 
failed. Worst of all, these youngsters who had looked 
forward so eagerly to their first great play had been 
disappointed also. He rose and spoke to them a trifle 
shakily. 

“Well, boys and girls, as long as our Queen Esther 


“A STAR—FOR A NIGHT ” 109 

isn’t here, I’m afraid we have to take off our costumes 
and go home.” 

“But Queen Esther is here,” thrilled a voice from the 
darkened theater. There was a rustle of skirts— 
women wore real petticoats with real flounces in those 
days!—the click of little heels on the wooden stairs 
leading up to the stage, and Madeline stood before 
them. She smiled her grateful, half-timid little smile, 
as they stared at her and waited for the rabbi to speak. 

“And who are you?” he demanded. 

“Queen Esther,” she mocked him. Then, suddenly 
sober, “I’ve been staying in town with friends a few 
days—I’m—ah—interested in plays—so when I heard 
you were rehearsing I thought it would be all right for 
me to drop in and look on. Then when I heard about 
your difficulties, I wondered whether I couldn’t help out 
a little. I’m not afraid to act, the way these young 
ladies seem to be; I used to be in plays at school a 
good deal.” 

Rabbi Thieler continued to stare at her. Where had 
he seen those laughing eyes, that tragic mouth—some 
picture or other—but where? Or had he grown so 
tired and excited that his fancy was playing tricks 
upon him? 

“It’s a long part; do you think you could learn it all 
by tomorrow night?” he stammered. 

Again the impish laughter in her eyes. “I think I 
can. Once I learned a very long part overnight—back 
at school. But if you don’t think I can do it,” she half 
turned to go. 

Rabbi Thieler caught her sleeve of flowered silk 
(women wore real sleeves in those days!) “Please 
help us,” he begged. “Here’s my copy of the play— 


110 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


I hope you can make out my writing” (few typewriters 
in those far-off barbarous times!), “and if you’ll only 
read through your lines now that the children can 
rehearse-” 

She read her lines and the rehearsal seemed to pass 
on fairy wings. The older girls stopped giggling to 
listen to the stranger’s musical voice, to watch her 
gracious gestures. The children were spellbound and 
the overworked rabbi was too delighted with his new 
heroine to nag them into their usual nervousness and 
self-consciousness. Once it occurred to him that it was 
an act of Providence that this lovely creature should 
act in his play instead of Sylvia, with all her affected 
mannerisms and high-pitched voice. But he imme¬ 
diately rebuked himself for the thought: it was almost 
as wicked as wishing poor Sylvia to contract diphtheria 
for his sake. (Before we leave her forever, let us 
assure our anxious readers that Sylvia didn’t die, as 
the heroine of the good old-fashioned romances always 
did as soon as a rival appeared upon the scene. When 
we last saw her she was the fat, happy mother of five 
children, and told us how her Sadie was always getting 
leading parts in their plays at college.) 

Of course, Rabbi Thieler had to have an evening 
rehearsal with Madeline. He felt a little awkward 
about calling on her at her friends’ house, as he wasn’t 
exactly intimate with her hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Forman. 
The Formans never denied that they were Jews; in 
fact, Max Forman (who couldn’t have denied his an¬ 
cestry even if he had wanted to) gave very liberally 
to the Temple and attended service every Rosh Ha- 
shonah and Yom Kippur, unless he happened to be 
away at the Springs for his rheumatism which gen- 



“A STAR—FOR A NIGHT” 


111 


erally got worse around that time; but the Formans 
associated almost entirely with non-Jews, those of the 
town’s Four Hundred who were gracious enough to 
recognize them. Therefore, every Jewish woman in 
Mortonville hated Mrs. Max Forman with all her heart, 
a sentiment the rabbi could hardly condemn, even if 
it were un-Christian. 

But on this occasion Fannie Forman greeted him 
most cordially, murmured some lovely things Madeline 
had told her about his lovely play, and left them alone 
in the great oak-paneled library. The private rehearsal 
was soon over, for the new Queen Esther had her lines 
letter perfect and seemed more than willing to chat 
with the young playwright about his first effort. She 
seemed to know a good deal about the theater and he 
listened very respectfully to her words. 

“It’s the best Purim play I ever read,” she told him. 
“Yes, of course,” in answer to his unspoken question, 
“I’m Jewish . . . and know a little about Purim. 
Although I’m afraid I’ve been brought up as heathen - 
ishly as Fannie’s bringing up her children. I knew 
Fannie at boarding school; we’ve kept in touch with 
each other ever since. She visited me in New York 
several times, so I stole the time away from my work 
to spend a few days with her before I go on to Cali¬ 
fornia.” 

“Your work?” 

“Never mind. I’m more interested in yours. Do 
you write much?” 

“Not much,” confessed the rabbi. “This is my first 
position and it’s taking most of my time learning the 
ropes. But if you think it’s a good play-” 

She raised her hands in playful horror; he noticed 



112 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


that her rings were set in bizarre but not unbeautiful 
designs. “I said it was a good Purim play; but please 
don’t let me start you on your road of folly by telling 
you that you can write good plays. It’s your first, isn’t 
it? That means nothing; write two, three, a half 
dozen—burn them all up and begin all over again. If 
you keep on writing that shows you may have a spark 
of the divine fire—but I hope for your sake that you 
haven’t. It ought to be much more satisfactory being 
a rabbi.” 

“Do you write?” he ventured. 

“No. And it’s time you went home, young man.” 
He rose, a little hurt at her manner. In Mortonville 
people treated the rabbi with unfailing respect. “I’m 
sleepy, and I have to have a good rest if I’m going to 
star in your play tomorrow night.” 

To relieve the gentle reader’s curiosity, Madeline, 
as Queen Esther, won every heart. Somehow her play¬ 
ing shed a magic glow over the amateurs about her; 
not a child forgot his lines; not an actor tripped over 
his long Persian robes. Everyone agreed with the 
young rabbi that it was a perfect Purim play presented 
in a perfect manner. (At least everybody but poor 
Sylvia, who sniffed rather unpleasantly when her 
mother read her the glowing press notices from the 
Mortonville Morning Journal. For Sylvia, who had 
taken elocution lessons from the time she could walk, 
was inclined to have rather high standards in dramatic 
art.) 

The play had started at nine promptly, ending at 
eleven-thirty, so there was no time to talk with Made¬ 
line after the performance. And when the rabbi called 
the next morning he was told that she had already left 


“A STAR—FOR A NIGHT ” 


113 


town. Hurt and perplexed, he asked to see Mrs. For¬ 
man. Somehow her greeting jarred upon him. He 
had always felt that a married woman with children 
shouldn’t try to act playfully with young men, espe¬ 
cially young rabbis. 

“Madeline told me to say good-by for her,” she told 
him, “and to thank you for your perfectly lovely flow¬ 
ers.” (Thieler wondered a little uneasily whether 
Madeline had found his note inside the box in which 
he had written somewhat effusively of his “dream 
Esther—his star for a night.”) “She decided to take 
the early train today instead of leaving Monday. But 
you know how notional these actresses are.” 

“Actresses?” stammered the rabbi. 

“That’s right—she told me you didn’t know. Before 
she came Madeline made me promise not to tell a soul. 
She said she wanted a good rest—no newspaper pub¬ 
licity—nor entertaining. But,” with her hateful air 
of patronage, “if you went up to New York as often 
as we do during the theater season you’d have guessed 
right away.” 

“I thought I’d seen her picture some place!” 

“In some of the magazines, I suppose. I’m going 
to have it in the Sunday Star , too; now that she’s gone 
it won’t do any harm and when I get a chance to enter¬ 
tain a celebrity like Mildred Hull, I want the credit 
for it.” 

Thieler felt a little dizzy. Mildred Hull—Mildred 
Hull whom he had never seen on the stage, but had 
heard rated among the first of American actresses. 
And she had liked his play! 

“Can you give me her address?” he asked briskly. 

“I don’t think she’d like it; she’s sort of peculiar. 


114 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Oh, yes—she said I could give you this—it’s her fa¬ 
vorite picture.” 

Again Thieler felt a little dizzy. For this was not 
the conventional half-length which was to appear in the 
Sunday Star, the picture he was to throw away with 
other dusty newspaper clippings fifteen years after. It 
was indeed a picture of Madeline, but her tragic mouth 
was curved into a fond maternal smile and two fine 
boys, about ten and twelve, respectively, leaned against 
either shoulder. 

“She’s awfully proud of them,” confided Mrs. For¬ 
man. “And,” enviously, “don’t she look terribly 
young? It’s wonderful how an actress can hide her 
age.” 

Rabbi Thieler never found time to write another 
Purim play, or in fact a play of any description. So, 
perhaps, he didn’t have the divine spark after all. 


PATCHWORK 

A Social Study 

W HEN we were nice little girls in clean white 
aprons and long smooth braids, our inky fingers 
often copied with painful exactness a certain truism 
at the top of the third page of our copy books: “A 
stitch in time saves nine.” We believed it then as nice 
little girls always believed everything they read in their 
copy books; now we believe it more than ever after 
seeing that stupid Seamstress called Society endeavor¬ 
ing to patch hopelessly worn-out material. 

The kitchen which also served as the dining room, 
parlor and laundry of the Kuppenstein household, as 
well as bedroom for Moritz and Dan, who slept on a 
cot in the corner, was crowded almost to suffocation. 
For the whole family gathered about the supper table, 
and on a certain July evening presented an animated 
if not an inspiring picture of Jewish home life as it is 
sometimes lived a stone’s throw from Delancey Street. 
All of the children were there, from eighteen-year-old 
Rose, who “worked by a milliner,” down to Baby Max 
fretting in his second-hand high chair. At the head of 
the oilcloth-covered table sat Ike Kuppenstein, a 
slumped, perspiring specimen of a pantsmaker after a 
hot day’s work, while Mamma Kuppenstein stood at 
the sink savagely sawing at the bread she had forgotten 
to put on the table. None of the six children had of- 
115 


116 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


fered to get up for her; she had been too busy raising 
her brood in her own unsystematic way to teach even 
the girls to do their share in the untidy, overcrowded 
household. 

Suddenly Dan pushed back his plate. “Me and 
Moritz is going down swimming by the wharves to¬ 
night, pa,” he told his father. “The cop don’t get by 
till nine o’clock, and if he comes we can sneak behind 
the lumber.” This with the New York street boy’s 
good-natured contempt for the officer of the law. 

The father nodded indifferently. Seeing the man 
slouched in his chair, no one would have suspected that 
as a boy his prowess as a swimmer in his far-away 
home across the sea had earned for him the epithet, 
“goy,” from certain elders who deemed it unseemly 
that a Jewish boy should find any pleasure in the 
sports of the heathen. Perhaps he had forgotten those 
long-ago days and did not see the pity of it that his 
two active youngsters were forced to steal their swim 
between the round of a stern policeman. But as usual 
he said nothing. 

Fourteen-year-old Mary, a girl of gypsy-like color¬ 
ing and tangled hair, broke in excitedly: “Take me 
with you—please. I learned to swim a little at the 
camp last summer and I’m just roasted to death. 
Make ’em take me, ma,” she pleaded, turning to her 
mother, who had slumped wearily into the empty chair 
beside Rose. 

“I care lots where you go,” answered her mother. 
She raised a bit of bread to her mouth, then put it 
down untasted. She had done the family washing that 
day, mopped the kitchen and tried to comfort the 
teething baby. Too exhausted to eat, she was scarcely 


PATCHWORK 


117 


in a mood to concern herself over Mary’s pleasures for 
the evening. “You can go,” she consented dully. 
“You’d oser take care of the baby for me if you stayed 
home.” 

“Pa, tell ’em to take me swimming, too,” cried Mary, 
ignoring the rebuke. “I ain’t been swimming all sum¬ 
mer ’cause they didn’t have no room for me at the free 
camp again, and you won’t give me four dollars to go 
to the pay one with Lilly Cohen,” the child ended 
accusingly. 

“Four dollars—when we’re lucky to pay our rent!” 
For a moment her father was roused from his usual 
apathy. “I can’t buy you shoes and bread and you 
want vacations in the country like millionaire children. 
And Rose putting every cent she makes on her back,” 
with a glare for his pretty first-born, who went on 
eating her supper with elaborate unconcern. 

“As long as he don’t make me pay board, let him 
holler,” was her inward comment. 

“But, pa, don’t the boys have to take me swimming?” 
Mary persisted, glad to drop her unreasonable griev¬ 
ances about camp vacations. 

Her father shrugged his indifference. “They can do 
what they please. I come home and you yell at me 
for vacations,” he answered. 

But the two boys were already at the door. 

“We ain’t going to take her, pa,” declared Moritz 
firmly. “The other fellows ’ud kid us to death if we 
took a girl along. Anyhow, it wouldn’t be nice ’cause 
nobody don’t wear a bathing suit,” he added as his 
most telling argument. 

Mary burst into tears as the door slammed behind 
them. “I don’t get to go nowhere,” she sobbed. “And 


118 THE TOWER OF DAVID 

you told me if I got passed at school I’d get a nice 
vacation.” 

“Vacation! Always a vacation!” her father mim¬ 
icked her angrily. “Do I get a vacation if I get so 
tired working I fall on my face? Nu, and where are 
you going?” as Rose left the table, unbuttoning her 
lingerie waist with one hand, fumbling at loose curls 
with the other. 

“Coney. Got to hurry and dress.” 

“Dress and her Coney Island! That’s all she thinks 
of. It would hurt her once if she washed the dishes 
when I’m standing on my feet all day,” grumbled her 
mother, as she fed a bit of gravy-soaked bread to the 
whining baby. “Mary, you got to help me once,” but 
Mary had already followed her sister into the stuffy 
bedroom the girls occupied with five-year-old Sadie. 
The little girl stood in the doorway regarding her young 
lady sister with sullen eyes. 

“Going to Coney?” she asked at last, wishing that 
she was grown up enough to work and buy pink cami¬ 
soles for herself. 

“Heard me say so, didn’t you?” Rose looked up 
from lacing a new pair of oxfords that had cost her 
almost two weeks’ salary. “Lord, I’m sweating! Can 
hardly wait till I get my clothes off out there and put 
on a bathing suit.” She rose, kicking a sleazy silk 
petticoat into the corner and took down a satin sport 
skirt which Mary knew was her best. 

“You’re going with a fellow,” surmised Mary, noting 
the splendors of Rose’s wardrobe. 

“Sure; what of it?” 

“He’ll pay your way, won’t he?” 

Mary, wise in the precocious wisdom of the East 


PATCHWORK 


119 


Side, knew better than to plead to be taken along if 
Rose’s plans included an escort. Once, on a never-to- 
be-forgotten Sunday, Rose had taken her to that magic 
land of lights and swings and a beach filled with bath¬ 
ers, and from that day her mouth had fairly watered 
at the mere sound of that fairy playground. 

“Then you won’t take me,” decided Mary hope¬ 
lessly. 

Rose, picking up her entirely unnecessary lip-stick, 
gave a short laugh. “Guess I won’t have a kid trotting 
along after me. Aw, for God’s sake, stop that bawl¬ 
ing,” as Mary’s lips began to quiver, her eyes to fill, 
“or I’ll tell pa to give you a good licking. What’s the 
matter with you, anyhow?” 

“I never get to go no place,” sobbed Mary, unable 
to diagnose her adolescent hysteria as the result of 
wrong food, stuffy sleeping quarters, too much excite¬ 
ment and too little exercise. “I want to go to Coney 
and go up in the Wheel and go swimming in the ocean.” 

“Wait till you get a fellow,” advised Rose carelessly. 
She stopped in her dressing to cast an approving glance 
at her little sister’s lithe figure, just rounding into 
womanhood, the tangled hair with glints of gold in its 
brown tendrils, the flushed cheeks and warmly curved 
lips. “You’ll be a winner some day, kiddo,” she said 
with good-natured admiration, “and you’ll get all the 
fellows you want to take you out and buy you things. 
Just be careful not to be a stick and learn to treat 
’em right, that’s all.” 

“What you mean?” Mary, perched on the foot of 
the rumpled bed, forgot Coney and swimming to listen 
to the wisdom of her elder sister. 

Rose, drawing on a very tight yellow jersey of a 


120 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


loose weave, gave a knowing little snigger. “Aw, you 
know what I mean—you’ve been to enough movies. 
Let ’em kiss you once in a while and don’t yell for the 
police if they try to hug you. ’Course,” with her most 
worldly air, “you’ve got to know how far to go. Don’t 
you never let a boy get too fresh with you.” 

“What you mean?” asked Mary again, a little 
ashamed although she didn’t know why. 

Rose was really embarrassed. Somehow she 
couldn’t share the worldly wisdom of the milliner’s 
shop, the nasty stories the girls exchanged over their 
lunches, with Mary who waited for her answer with 
big innocent eyes filled with humble admiration. So 
she spoke almost harshly. 

“You ain’t old enough to know them things yet.” 

“That’s what ma always says when I ask her,” 
complained Mary. 

“She’s right. Kids know too darn much nowadays,” 
with the loftiness of all her eighteen years. “Say, this 
place is stuffy enough without you crowding in, too. 
Go on out in the kitchen.” 

Mary crept through the kitchen very softly, lest her 
mother, trying to quiet the heat-tortured baby, should 
hear her and stop her to help with the dishes. Down 
in the teeming street, she wandered from corner to 
corner, too old to play tag with the children frisking 
about the gutters, too young to go out with fellows, 
like Rose. But, standing before the lurid posters of a 
picture house, she noticed a boy about Rose’s age 
standing at the door beside the ticket box. She didn’t 
like his eyes; somehow they made her afraid; but she 
suddenly remembered her big sister’s counsel. If 
she couldn’t go swimming with her brothers, or have 


PATCHWORK 


121 


a week at camp, or go to Coney—-well, decided Mary 
in her starving little soul, she’d go to see a movie for 
nothing once in a while, anyhow. 

So she raised her eyes, deep and hungry, to the 
young man’s shifting ones; then dropped the heavy 
lids with a smile far more provocative than she her¬ 
self dreamed. The ticket taker moved toward her. 
“Want to come in and see the show?” he invited. 
“There ain’t much of a crowd tonight. Everybody’s 
gone to Coney.” . . . Later, when the two stood drink¬ 
ing highly-colored sodas at a corner stand, Mary de¬ 
cided that she’d ask him to take her to Coney, too. 
Didn’t Rose say any fellow would be good to you if 
you treated him right? 

Last week we had a little talk with Mr. Kuppen- 
stein in the pretty little office of a certain Home where 
sixteen-year-old Mary had gone to bear her baby. The 
shrunken, dejected pantsmaker was more weary and 
apologetic than ever as he explained why they could 
not help their daughter in her trouble. 

“No, she wasn’t a bad girl,” he told us, “till she got 
running out nights. I licked her but it didn’t do no 
good. She was crazy over the boys. And we don’t 
want her home now—we can’t have the neighbors 
talking. My Rose’s engaged to a grand young man 
now and it would be terrible for her.” 

His discouraged eyes wandered through the open 
door into the living room, cheerful with plants and 
pictures, the walls lined with books; beyond one caught 
glimpses of the nursery for the unwanted babies, all 
white tile and sunshine, with a blue and white uni- 


122 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


formed nurse passing between the little beds. His 
lips twisted into an ironical smile. 

“Our baby died two summers ago,” he said, slowly. 
“We had no good air by our house and ice cost too 
much and the milk got bad sometimes. Sometime it 
is better to be—like hers—and live out in the coun¬ 
try and get clean milk and have a nurse look after 
you. It is all crazy, ain’t it?” 

He rose to go, his eyes still hungrily devouring the 
pleasant living room which Mary and the other un¬ 
married girl-mothers enjoyed so much when they came 
to the Home to bear their illegitimate babies. For a 
moment he struggled for the right words to say, for 
he was a man long used to silent thinking. 

At last: “Maybe you don’t know what I mean, and 
I know you ladies all got good hearts, and God knows 
where Mary would be if you didn’t take her in and 
the baby. But it’s all patchwork. I sew pants and 
I know if a thread’s loose or a seam’s open, you just 
take a needle and a stitch or two—and it’s finished. 
But you got to do it in time. It ain’t so expensive like 
waiting till a piece is all holes and you put patches on 
it that don’t always do no good. Like my Mary.” 

He paused again, groping for his words. “Yes, 
patchwork,” he repeated dully. “My Mary wanted 
to swim and go to the country where she wouldn’t go 
to bum picture shows all the time. But it cost too 
much for me to send her and they didn’t have no room 
for her in the free camp. But ain’t it going to cost 
you more to take care of her here when she gets sick, 
and, maybe, keep her baby if nobody wants it? . . . 
I ain’t no millionaire, but I want my children to grow 
right—and they can’t in the streets. And now my 


PATCHWORK 


123 


littlest girl Sadie begs the life out of me to send her 
to the country like Mary used to. Maybe I can fix it 
a week—and the rest of the summer she plays in the 
street and loafers talk to her and make her bad.” 
His voice shook with sudden passion. “Say, ain’t any¬ 
body going to look after her neither ’til she gets bad 
like Mary—and has to come out here!” 


BIRDS OF A FEATHER 

An Adventure of a Converted Jewess 

“T7HNE feathers,” says the old fable, “make fine 
birds,” and Mrs. Seymore Coleman in all the glory 
of her spring raiment was a very fine bird indeed. Her 
hat, with its triumphant bird of paradise, might have 
delighted the heart of any female angel, no matter 
how far removed from mundane vanities; her oxfords 
and gloves were perfection in their immaculate gray¬ 
ness; best of all, her spring suit, with its exclusive label 
beneath the collar, lifted her gently from the hundred 
and sixty into the hundred and forty-five pound class. 
A miracle that several months of reluctant and spas¬ 
modic dieting had failed to accomplish. 

But although she stood before her mirror arrayed 
like a feminine Solomon in all her glory, Mrs. Sey¬ 
more Coleman was not happy. Her lips puckered in 
a not unbecoming pout; her large black eyes all but 
overflowed with tears—almost, but not quite. For 
what lady will ever allow her cheeks to become tear- 
stained, her nose shiny with emotion, after she has 
carefully powdered for church? 

Yes, Mrs. Coleman was going to church. She 
stopped long enough at the door of her husband’s den 
to throw him a good-morning as he sat engulfed by 
the billows of his scattered Sunday papers; then, with 
a snap to the top button of her gloves and a twitch to 
her veil, she tripped down the front stairs of her neat 
124 


BIRDS OF A FEATHER 


125 


little house in the fashionable fifties, shedding a fra¬ 
grance of violet perfume and unaffected piety as she 
moved. 

The spring sun was shining gloriously; Mrs. Cole¬ 
man was glad that she had not ordered the car; a walk 
down Fifth Avenue under the benediction of the May 
sun was as good for her soul as for her figure. It 
was hard to feel depressed as she moved along with 
the stream of church-goers that flowed down Fifth, 
no longer a mart crowded with luxury shops and lovely 
ladies wistful to buy, but in its Sabbath mood of de¬ 
vout men and women, who, though clad in their best, 
walked humbly before their Maker. Even the fussy 
taxis puffed in a more decorous key as all New York 
went to church to pray, bringing the week-day rags 
and tags, the Devil’s leavings, as oblation to a week¬ 
end God. 

Mrs. Seymore Coleman walked with the rest, prayer 
book carried in delicately gloved hands, eyes cast down 
demurely as they surveyed her chaste corsage of 
ophelia rose buds and lilies of the valley. She sighed 
as she stopped for a moment before a florist’s window 
to gaze upon the flaunting yellows and pinks of spring 
blooms, and to adjust her veil in a convenient mirror. 
For Mrs. Coleman knew now what it was to enter a 
florist’s and order her own flowers. To be sure, dear 
Sam—Seymore, rather!—never grumbled over the size 
of her monthly bills for flowers; in fact, he never 
grumbled at all any more, even when he saw her 
leaving for church on a Sabbath morning. But Mrs. 
Coleman, remembering how often he had sent her 
blossoms during their engagement—those lean years 
when a corsage for his sweetheart meant several sim- 


126 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


plified meals for a young broker’s clerk—sighed over 
the passing of youth and romance. 

“I wonder whether we weren’t just as happy when 
I did my own housework up in Harlem,” mused Mrs. 
Coleman. “I got terribly tired, and the neighbor 
women were awfully vulgar and hung out of their 
windows all day and forgot to comb their hair half the 
time—but they were neighborly. Especially when 
little Estelle had whooping cough and I thought I was 
going to lose her.” 

A smile of almost vulgar triumph wreathed the 
lady’s features. For Estelle, at least, had not disap¬ 
pointed her. As the Colemans had advanced in 
worldly prosperity, the little daughter had risen far 
above and out of her parents’ sphere; now Mrs, Cole¬ 
man visited her daughter and her son-in-law only on 
state occasions; yet she was not too unhappy over 
the chasm which separated her from her own flesh and 
blood. On the contrary, she sometimes bragged to 
her few acquaintances of her daughter’s patrician ex¬ 
clusiveness; for Estelle’s dowry had bought her a place 
in one of the very first families of old New York, a 
mystically closed circle into which she had no inten¬ 
tion of dragging her plebeian parents. 

“It’s hard enough for me to get anywhere,” she 
complained to her mother more than once as soon as 
the raptures of the honeymoon were over. “My looks 
always give me away—and most of Van’s people seem 
to think I wear horns under my marcel. Of course, 
they come to our place when we invite them, but it’s 
like pulling teeth to get them to entertain me prop¬ 
erly. And, by the way, mamma, tell papa not to give 
me any more jewelry for my birthday. My diamonds 


BIRDS OF A FEATHER 


127 


look pretty vulgar, anyway, and I’d rather have a 
check. It costs money to entertain Van’s people.” 

Being a devoted mother, Mrs. Coleman told her¬ 
self that everything was for the best. If her darling 
Estelle had climbed heights too giddy for her own 
parents to scale, why shouldn’t she be content to stay 
down in the valley—and read about Estelle’s parties 
in the society columns of the Times ? And when a 
reproduction of Estelle in evening dress, mostly shoul¬ 
ders and a frozen smile, appeared among certain so¬ 
cial leaders of the season, Mrs. Coleman’s heart was 
too full for words. It was worth seeing Estelle very 
seldom, and never at one of the big affairs when her 
husband’s aristocratic relatives were present; for her 
daughter had “arrived” and Mrs. Coleman’s one duty 
on earth was ended. 

But, unfortunately, the mother bird must continue 
to flutter along her uninspired way, even after the 
fledgling leaves the nest. Mrs. Coleman was still well 
under fifty; there was no housework to do, since three 
maids and a man helped to keep the household machin¬ 
ery in the home up in the fashionable fifties running 
without a single creak. She hated needlework and she 
had never cared for reading; unfortunately she was 
just a few years too old to enter club work or social 
service, the panacea of the modern woman whose 
house and children no longer need her daily care. 
While Coleman had always been a solitary beast, work¬ 
ing like a devil incarnate all day and coming home at 
night to drowse over his paper or game of solitaire— 
a successful broker, but not a congenial housemate. 
No wonder that poor Mrs. Coleman, thoroughly bored, 
took to religion! 


128 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Not that Mrs. Coleman called her initiation into 
Saint John’s most exclusive cult “getting religion.” 
She explained it all to her husband, very prettily and 
at some length, and he listened with an occasional 
grunt, whether of scorn or approval it was hard to say, 
and at the end he told her, as usual, “to go ahead.” 
But sometimes a lady when talking even to her own 
husband doesn’t tell him the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth. Mrs. Coleman insisted that she would 
feel more at home at Saint John’s than in the syna¬ 
gogue which she had attended once or twice a year 
in her girlhood. She neglected to add that some of 
the very nicest people in New York attended Saint 
John’s and that her membership in that select body 
might form a sort of Jacob’s Ladder on which she 
might mount to that heavenly circle where Estelle 
and her husband’s family lived and had their being. 

Strangely enough, the select members of Saint John’s 
did not rise in a body and bid her welcome. Mrs. 
Coleman was irreproachable in character and her man¬ 
ners did not offend even her hypercritical daughter; 
she was fairly well educated and knew when to hold 
her tongue, which in social circles is sometimes a 
much greater advantage than a college degree; while 
to one and every church charity she gave as freely as 
she dared, checks large enough to be called generous— 
but not of such liberal amounts that a caviling critic 
could call her ostentatious. Yet Mrs. Coleman did 
not seem to get on at Saint John’s. 

So far no one had called upon her but the rector; 
at the various church affairs which she attended with 
all the conscientious zeal of a convert, the church 
members were polite but not cordial; she was never 


BIRDS OF A FEATHER 


129 


asked to serve on committees, even to pass tea and 
wafers after the thimble parties, where she sewed more 
flannel petticoats for the heathen than any other two 
ladies. Really desperate, she had suggested to the 
rector that she would not resent from the pews a little 
of the Christian charity he so frequently preached from 
the pulpit. The good man seemed somewhat embar¬ 
rassed, but promised to do his best. 

So it was more than the balmy spring sunshine that 
kindled new hopes within Mrs. Coleman’s genteel 
breast. The rector had insinuated when she had met 
him at a Bible study class the day before that one of 
the very loveliest ladies of his congregation had ex¬ 
pressed a desire to meet her. Mrs. Coleman would 
be at Sabbath morning services, of course? So would 
Mrs. Ireson. If Mrs. Coleman would detain him a 
moment after the benediction, he was sure she would 
enjoy meeting Mrs. Ireson, a really delightful person, 
and so cultured. Mrs. Coleman could have kissed 
him! She felt like a traveler—say, in Italy—who 
hears a bit of Broadway slang and catches a whiff of 
honest-to-God American coffee. 

Sunday morning services at Saint John’s had drawn 
to their decorous close. The rector advanced toward 
the expectant Mrs. Coleman, a slender, distinguished 
woman in his wake, a most delightful lady, who mur¬ 
mured the proper thing when presented, then flushed 
a dull red under her cobwebby veil as she scanned 
Mrs. Coleman’s face. And Mrs. Coleman, after the 
first swift glance, blushed also. It takes a thief to 
catch a thief, a Jew to unmask another Jew. After 
the first swift surveyal of the member so graciously 
eager to make her feel at home at Saint John’s, Mrs. 


130 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Seymore Coleman felt certain that her husband’s birth 
name must have been something like Isaacs. 

The rector passed on and left them together, two 
birds of a feather who had found each other out in 
all that alien flock. Mrs. Ireson, with a smile that 
was gently satiric, looked after him. “Poor dear, he 
does try so hard to do the right thing,” she murmured 
tactfully. 

But Mrs. Coleman felt anything but tactful; the 
last spark of hope had died in her breast; the beauty 
of the spring day had grown stale and chill. “I didn’t 
have to depend on him to introduce me to Jews,” she 
said. 

Mrs. Ireson (nee something very much like Isaacs) 
smiled her slow, gentle smile. “He tried to be nice 
to me at the same time,” she explained. “I’ve been 
coming here almost five years and nobody will take 
me up. But he didn’t expect you to be prejudiced!” 

“I’m not!” A very human look flashed across the 
Sunday make-up of Mrs. Coleman’s plump face. 
“I’m tickled to death to meet somebody here who 
doesn’t think she’s better than I am, and that she’s 
doing me a favor to talk to me a minute about the 
weather or to ask me for a contribution to the Mite 
Society. I’d like to know you real well. Maybe you 
could come and have dinner with us some time; it’s 
been getting awfully lonesome since Estelle left us.” 

“I’d like to very much,” Mrs. Ireson responded 
heartily. “I’ve been boarding ever since my poor hus¬ 
band selig died and I do get hungry for a homemade 
meal.” 

Mrs. Coleman flushed guiltily. “I’ve not been in my 
kitchen for months,” she confessed, “but I’m a good 


BIRDS OF A FEATHER 


131 


cook if I do have to say so myself. My poor Sam says 
it don’t taste like home cooking any more since we 
hire everything done. But if you come over next 
week some night I’ll give the cook a day off and cook 
you a meal nobody’ll be ashamed of. What would 
you like?” 

“I haven’t eaten sauer brauten and potato dumplings 
for I don’t know when,” sighed Mrs. Ireson. “And 
my poor husband selig was so fond of it.” 

“Mr. Cohen likes it too,” answered Mrs. Coleman, 
stumbling a bit over the all too common name, dis¬ 
carded while Estelle was still in finishing school. “And 
so do I, but it’s terrible fattening. How do you make 
yours?” 

Deep in the mystic ways of preparing sauer brauten, 
Mrs. Isaacs and Mrs. Cohen walked down the dim, 
refined aisles of Saint John’s—together. 


A SON OF PHARAOH 

A Minor Tragedy of the Exodus 

S EPHI was the first-born son of Pharaoh and the 
darling of his father’s heart. For he was tall and 
as beautiful as the boy god Horus and his laugh was 
like music and those who looked upon his shining face 
forgot their burdens and called down blessings upon 
his head. Since the world was made, there was no 
youth more fortunate than Sephi, who loved bright 
colors and pleasant music and the odor of flowers in 
his garden, and the perfumes and myrrh which the 
dark merchant-men brought to Egypt in their caravans 
across the burning desert sands. 

All who looked upon Sephi loved him because of 
his beauty and his grace and his laughter which 
caused even the bowed slaves of Israel to forget their 
burdens in the brickyards as he passed. They toiled 
beneath the burning sun and knew the red whips of 
their task-masters; he rode by, reclining on silken 
cushions in his litter, born by mighty black slaves, who 
brushed away the flies with great fans of peacock 
feathers, and offered him iced sherbets in goblets of 
wrought gold. But the slaves of Israel dared not 
pause in their labors to cool their throats, which 
burned from the heat of the cruel sun and the dust of 
the bricks which they made, even when they grew 
faint and dizzy and could not see the bricks which 
they piled without ceasing. For they labored for 
132 


A SON OF PHARAOH 


133 


Pharaoh and their toil brought him much revenue, so 
he had no need to deny himself any pleasure his heart 
desired. Nor did he stint his son Sephi in the desires 
of his heart, for he dearly loved Sephi, who was his 
first-born and a youth of such beauty as the world 
had never seen before. 

When Sephi was but a little child, toddling about 
the lily-bordered lakes of his grandfather’s cool gar¬ 
dens, he had ever left his play to walk beside a grave- 
eyed youth who wore the livery of the court. The 
half-grown lad was the foster-son of Sephi’s aunt, the 
princess Bithiah, and because she had rescued him 
from the waters when he was but a little child, she had 
named him Moses. Rumor had it that Moses was a 
Hebrew child, doomed to death in earlier years by 
Pharaoh’s hard decree that no Hebrew boy should 
be allowed to live. And some added that his mother 
had set the child afloat on the river Nile in a frail 
basket made of rushes, which the handmaidens of the 
princess Bithiah had brought ashore when the princess 
had come down to the river to bathe. But for all 
that, the lad was treated like a son of the house of 
Pharaoh, and Sephi looked upon him as a beloved 
brother. 

Often they walked together in the cool of Pharaoh’s 
gardens, and Moses told the child wondrous tales his 
own nurse Jochebed had told him in his own child¬ 
hood. Stories of Abraham, the father of her race, 
and Jacob, who was a prince in his own land, although 
today all men looked upon his people, the Hebrews, 
as a slave nation. She had told him, too, that some 
day a Deliverer would rise in Egypt and lead the 
wretched ones of Israel into their own land. And little 


134 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Sephi would listen as a child always must listen to 
marvelous tales and would cry out for more stories; 
but at this point Moses would look far off with eyes 
that seemed to see nothing, and he would fall into a 
strange silence. 

Those were pleasant days in the garden of Pharaoh 
and they passed all too soon. And now others told 
Sephi tales of wonder and glory, for Moses no longer 
walked with him in the fragrant gardens. Sephi heard 
whispers that a sudden madness had seized his aunt’s 
foster son; that filled with a strange fury, Moses had 
slain an Egyptian task-master and had fled from court. 
Some hinted that Moses had sought to save a Hebrew 
slave from punishment, but few believed so foolish a 
tale. For Moses had always been considered a son 
of Egypt and why should he have raised a hand to 
aid a wretched Israelite? 

So the boy with the grave eyes and strange spells 
of silence passed out of Sephi’s mind and he forgot 
him for a while as all children learn to forget. And 
others took the place of his one companion, sons of 
the noblemen of Pharaoh’s court, princely boys who 
were born to rule and seldom thought of the humble 
ones of Egypt, those who hewed wood or carried water 
or tilled the soil that the nobles might eat and be 
satisfied. And they thought least of all of the slaves 
who toiled for long hours beneath the burning sun in 
the brickyards of Pharaoh, their life-blood dripping 
upon the bricks which they made that Pharaoh might 
have much revenue, and his heir Sephi might sleep 
upon silken cushions and spend idle days in the palace 
gardens with the companions whom he loved. 

The gardens of Pharaoh were a pleasant place and 


A SON OF PHARAOH 


135 


no ugly thing disturbed their beauty. Blue and white 
lilies grew about the cool lakes; birds of gorgeous 
color flitted among the trees. They sang from dawn 
until sunset, but their music was no sweeter than the 
sound of lutes the companions of Sephi played to 
bring him joy, or Sephi’s own laughter as he tossed 
his golden ball or raced along the smooth white paths. 
The gardens were a pleasant place and he loved them 
so much he seldom cared to go out into the world. 
And when he was carried through the street in his 
litter borne by mighty black slaves, he learned to close 
his eyes that they might not fall upon anything 
wretched or ugly. And so passionately did he come 
to love beauty and to hate ugliness and pain that he 
forbade those about him to speak of the sorrows of 
the great world which began at the garden gates and 
stretched far beyond the stifling brickyards where the 
wretched Hebrews toiled from dawn till night. 

No one was allowed to speak a harsh or ugly word 
before Sephi, so he dreamed that the hearts of all men 
were as gentle as his own; there was no violence in 
his garden kingdom and he believed that all men ruled 
as he did, even by love. Because when a companion 
sickened he was at once banished from Sephi’s court, 
the boy could not conceive of disease; so hard did 
Pharaoh strive to blind the eyes of the beloved child 
to the harsh things of this earth, where sorrow comes 
even to kings, that he ordered the prince’s slaves to go 
through the darkness every night, carrying torches 
and plucking every flower and leaf that had withered, 
lest the boy might learn of death and decay. And 
Sephi laughed on, happy as the boy god Horus in all 
his shining beauty. 


136 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


But one morning he found in the garden path a tiny 
bird that had fallen from its nest and had been crushed 
by the stones on the path below. And he grieved 
sorely over the little body which lay still warm in his 
fingers. But his attendants took it away quickly and 
told him the bird was asleep. So, through their watch¬ 
fulness, Sephi never learned of the thing other men 
call death. . . . And on that very day his old com¬ 
panion, Moses, came to court. 

To Sephi in his prison gardens came no word of 
the prayers Moses laid before his father, Pharaoh. 
The boy did not know how wretched were the Hebrew 
slaves who toiled in the brickyards for his father’s 
sake. He did not even know that Moses had returned 
from a far-off land and sought to save his unhappy 
people. For Pharaoh forbade the prince’s companions 
and attendants to speak of Moses to Sephi on pain of 
death; he could deny the lad nothing, and he was loath 
to have his son ask for the companionship of Moses, 
now a confessed Hebrew and little better than a slave. 

So Moses pleaded in vain before Pharaoh, and Sephi, 
playing in his garden, never heard his voice above the 
murmur of the lutes his companions played and the 
songs which they sang for his pleasure. 

In the records of Egypt it is written of the many 
wonders the man Moses wrought before Pharaoh, 
bringing plagues upon the land, filling the souls of the 
people with fear. But Pharaoh, his heart strangely 
hardened, although his councilors were mad with ter¬ 
ror, would not allow the slaves of Israel to depart from 
Egypt. For he had grown rich from their toil and he 
knew that he would miss their revenue. And, although 
he was no longer a young man and knew that soon 


A SON OF PHARAOH 


137 


he would sleep beside his fathers, he thought of his 
dear son, Sephi, and dreaded lest the departure of 
these Hebrew workmen should lessen the boy’s in¬ 
heritance. So he hardened his heart against the words 
of Moses and the strange afflictions Moses had brought 
upon the land, and would not let Israel go. 

In the records of the Hebrews it is written that one 
day as a Hebrew mother toiled in the brickyards, the 
babe who was her first-born died on her breast. But 
the overseer would not give her time to bury it, but 
ordered it walled in the monument her bleeding hands 
had helped to build. Then the weeping mother sought 
Moses and told him her tale. And he wept with her, 
but when he went before Pharaoh all gentleness had 
died from his eyes and his face was so terrible with 
wrath that the guards who stood at the door of Pha¬ 
raoh’s palace trembled with fear and allowed him to 
pass. 

Then Moses stood before Pharaoh and told him the 
tale of the Hebrew mother and her babe and bade him 
have mercy upon Israel. . . . And Pharaoh laughed. 
So Moses gathered his robes about him and left 
Pharaoh sitting upon his throne. 

That night there was great lamentation in the land 
of Egypt, a wailing that seemed to reach the stars. 
In the huts of peasants, in the courts of the temples, 
in the palaces of the nobles of Egypt, the humble and 
the mighty together wailed their dead. For the hand 
of God had fallen heavily upon the blood-stained land 
of Egypt and in every home save the houses of the 
oppressed Israelites, the first-born lay cold in death. 

In the gardens of Pharaoh where he had been 
stricken, lay Sephi, the first-born of Pharaoh, the rose 


138 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


wreath still unwithered about his shining head. His 
hands were still filled with the flowers his young com¬ 
panions had plucked for him that day, those princely 
boys, the first-born of their fathers, now sleeping the 
sleep of death beside his couch. Their fathers, the 
highest noblemen of Egypt, wept aloud and beat their 
breasts; but Pharaoh, sitting among them in his royal 
robes, his crown of twisted gold about his brows, did 
not weep. The blow had fallen too quickly for him 
to realize as yet that his beloved son whose day had 
been all sunshine and music had been the first to per¬ 
ish. He could not understand that he who had for¬ 
bidden sorrow to enter the palace gardens was now 
powerless to wrest his first-born from the strong arms 
of the Angel of Death. 

While amid the Hebrews who made ready to depart 
from Egypt stood Moses, and his heart was high with 
hope. Yet he wept as he remembered the little child 
with whom he had often walked beside the lily-bor¬ 
dered lakes in Pharaoh’s gardens. 


DAWN THROUGH THE 
DARKNESS 

The Story of a Russian Passover 

S HE sat on one of the long benches at Ellis Island, a 
bundle wrapped in a shawl at her feet. Her face 
was unwrinkled, but her eyes were the eyes of a very 
old woman and her abundant hair was streaked with 
gray. And this is the story she told me in a heavy 
monotone, her hands making plaits in her skirt as she 
spoke. 

Three times the armies came over us, plowing 
through the streets like a plow in the springtime— 
so. First the Germans and then the Russians and then 
the Germans again. Was it better when the Germans 
were there? Ach, it is never good to be a Jew, and 
in wartime every heart is as hard as a stone. The 
last time they drove us out and burned every house 
and synagogue and overturned the stones in the Beth 
Hayim for they seemed to hate even our dead and 
wanted to shame them in their death. I think all of 
us would have been glad to lie down and rest there, 
but they drove us out into the roads. We did not 
know where to go or where we could find rest. Our 
old rabbi—he was the only man they had not taken 
for the army, except Mendel, who is blind, and a few 
old men almost too weak to crawl after us—our old 
rabbi tried to cheer us as we went along; but his heart 
was broken and he was among the first to die, 

139 


140 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Erev Pesach we were still on the roads. It was a 
mild evening and I could smell spring in the air. We 
rested in a field and divided the little bread we still 
carried; Mendel said it was no sin, because we were 
starving and our children were crying for food. Once 
Miriam, the shochet’s wife, spoke of last Pesach. God 
knows we had all been poor enough then, with some¬ 
times scarcely more than a loaf of bread for Shabbas; 
but at Pesach there had been matzos and raisin wine 
for every Seder. Reb Nathan never forgot a single 
Jewish soul at Pesach; he was a rich man, but he lost 
all when the war came, and if he had lived to be with 
us that night under the sky, it would have torn his 
heart to hear the children begging for another mouth¬ 
ful; he had never closed his hand even when he grew 
as poor as the rest of us. 

We could not bear to listen to Miriam, the shochet’s 
wife. How could anyone dare to hope that another 
Pesach would find us at Seder again? Out there in 
the fields every heart was as black as night; we could 
believe in the Angel of Death that flew over the house¬ 
tops, but we would never again open our doors with 
hopeful hearts and wait for Elijah to come in. 

I did not think of all this that erev Pesach by the 
roadside. God knows I have had plenty of time since 
—to think and to try to forget. Sometimes it is hard 
to sleep and then I dream—and it is hardest when I 
dream of my sister Bashe. 

There were just two of us, Bashe and I. I was 
much older than Bashe; I think she was only four or 
five when I married. I was barren and she seemed 
more like my own child than my sister. When my hus¬ 
band died she came to live with me, and when she 


DAWN THROUGH THE DARKNESS 141 


herself married, just a little before the war began, the 
three of us went on living together, which was good 
fortune for them, poor things! Moshe’s father had 
left him a shop; but he had no head for business and 
it was I that kept their store. Moshe liked to sit 
with his big books all day; I think he must have been 
a poor soldier, but they took him along with the rest. 
He was one of the first to be shot; poor Moshe, he 
was a Schlemiel, but he had a heart of gold and he 
would have done his best for Bashe and the little one, 
if things had not gone wrong for all of us. 

More than once, when Bashe fell by the road, I 
wondered whether she would ever rise again, for she 
was never strong, and as her time grew shorter, I 
feared to see her die before my face. How could I 
hope that she would ever rise from her child-bed or 
that the child would be born alive? 

Near midnight on erev Pesach, there in the fields 
underneath the sky, Bashe’s pains came upon her and 
I held her child in my arms. I think I felt like a real 
grandmother then; for Bashe was like my own daugh¬ 
ter. Before I gave him to Taube to wash and care for 
I saw that he was very beautiful. They used to say 
over there that there was never a woman like me for 
tending a mother and all who knew me always called 
me to come when a child was to be helped into the 
world; I have stood beside many a bed and held many 
a newborn baby in my arms, but never have I seen a 
child as strong and as beautiful as the boy my sister 
bore beside the road. 

Just before she died, Bashe asked to see her baby, 
and as she held him she told me to name him Moshe, 
after his dead father. The next day we started on our 


142 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


way again, not knowing where to go. I carried Bashe’s 
child in my arms, and Grenda, whose little one had 
died a few days before, fed it at her breast and sobbed 
as she told me that she wished she might have been 
taken instead of my sister. For, she said, what good 
can come to this little orphan in a world of strangers? 
Once blind Mendel groped his way toward me and felt 
the child’s face with his long fingers. Then he stared 
before him without speaking until I became afraid. 
At last he said: “Born on erev Pesach—and she bade 
you call him Moshe! Is it for a sign? I cannot see 
your face, but I can see the path that lies before him. 
When the days were blackest in Egypt, then Moshe 
Rabbenu brought us light. It is black enough now for 
the Meshiach to come.” 

Those were his words and I cannot forget them. My 
mother once told me that some day a Jewish woman 
will bear a child, and he will be the Meshiach and 
bring an end to all our troubles. Then how can I help 
but wonder. . . . 

No, I do not know where my sister’s son is today. 
Why should I tell you how it came to pass? It would 
seem too wild, too much like one of my own black 
dreams for you to believe me. They say that such 
things do not happen in America. But over there . . . 

After many days we came to a small settlement of 
our people. They, too, were suffering from the war, 
but at least they still had roofs over their heads and 
crusts of bread to eat. They shared with us, for 
every Jew is your brother at such a time, and we 
thought at last we had found a little rest. But we were 
like drowning men trying to escape from the sea. We 
thought we had found a dry rock, but even there a 


DAWN THROUGH THE DARKNESS 143 


great wave came and swept us away. There were 
more soldiers; it was like the days when they drove 
us from our homes—only more terrible. They burned 
the houses over our heads and drove us to where long 
trains stood; there they herded us behind the locked 
doors like so much cattle sent to the market. There 
was wailing and cursing and struggling; the soldiers 
pushed us before them; children were torn from their 
parents, and—yes, I see you looking beneath my 
shawl. ... I am not sitting with empty arms like 
that woman over there, because my children died of 
hunger before we found a safe place; I never had a 
child to die. And my sister’s son—the one she called 
Moshe—he whom blind Mendel saw would lead us 
out of the darkness. . . . 

(She broke off suddenly, staring before her, a flick¬ 
ering light glimmering beneath the dim weariness of 
her eyes.) 

How can I believe that he is dead? He was torn 
from me that day and it would be easier to find a speck 
of dust that the wind has blown about than to find my 
sister’s child. But my heart tells me that somewhere 
some Jewish mother feeds him and keeps him warm. 
As God hears me, the child must live until he has done 
all that blind Mendel prophesied. He said that help 
for Israel would come in the night season. Tell me, 
could any hour be blacker than that night when I 
first held Bashe’s child? Could the Name have chosen 
a better time to send us the dawn? 


TWENTY YEARS AFTER 

When Is the Jew Welcome? 

M IRIAM DAVIDSON smiled reminiscently as she 
loosened her furs and looked about the reception 
room of Miss Darwin’s very select school for very 
select young ladies. It was sure proof of her old 
school’s social superiority that so little had changed 
during the twenty years since her own graduation: the 
same substantial mid-Victorian furniture, the high 
bookcases with their mellowed sets of the classics, the 
marble busts of Shakespeare and Daniel Webster, all 
were still in their accustomed places. The curtains and 
rugs, Mrs. Davidson knew, must have been replaced, 
not once but several times; yet even they bore a strik¬ 
ing resemblance to the furnishings of her own school 
days. 

But time deals less gently with us humans, and 
when Miss Darwin herself entered the room, Miriam 
was shocked to see what a change the years had 
wrought in her old school mistress; Miss Darwin’s 
hair had grayed, there were wrinkles in her patrician 
face; her figure once attractively slender had grown 
angular. Even her easy poise of manner was gone; 
she seemed distinctly nervous as she greeted her for¬ 
mer pupil. 

“It was good of you to come,” she began almost 
nervously as soon as they had shaken hands. 

“You see, I’m buying Beatrice’s winter things in 
144 


TWENTY YEARS AFTER 


145 


New York, so I thought it better to run up here and see 
you instead of wiring you about the child/’ answered 
Miriam. “That’s why I didn’t bring her with me 
today. I wanted to have a good talk with you first; 
when I bring her next week to be enrolled for the 
winter term-” 

“I am sure your little daughter must be just as 
lovely and intelligent as you were at fourteen, when 
you entered our school,” murmured Miss Darwin, with 
what Miriam sensed was a sort of painful politeness. 
She stared at her old friend a little doubtfully. 

“I’m sure you’ll all like her,” she agreed heartily. 
“Even if you do find her a little spoiled. She’s our 
only child and her father and I have made a great pet 
of her. She’s never attended school before—a gov¬ 
erness except when we’ve been traveling in Europe, 
and special instruction in languages and music. We 
think she’s rather talented for her age.” 

“I am sure of it,” agreed Miss Darwin, but her tone 
was less hearty than her words. 

“You know I’ve been living in California since my 
marriage,” Miriam went on, “so I’ve never been able 
to attend any of the class reunions. But I’ve never 
forgotten what a wonderful four years I spent here,” 
her eyes wandering through the French windows to 
the well-kept grounds and the river beyond, so remind¬ 
ful of days of skating and canoeing. “That’s why as 
soon as Beatrice was born I entered her name and 
that’s why I am willing to give her up to come here. 
I know how much you can do for her.” 

Miss Darwin cleared her throat uneasily; a slight 
flush crept over her highbred features. “I know your 
loyalty toward our school, Miriam,” she said, “and 



146 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


it has always touched me. Some of our girls do not 
remember for—how long is it since your graduation? 
—yes, yes, for twenty years. Your little notes on my 
birthday have meant as much, I want you to believe, 
as your liberal checks for our new library and our 
memorial fountain. That’s why I wish you hadn’t de¬ 
cided to enter your daughter this winter.” 

“But, why-?” 

“For the last five years,” Miss Darwin told her with 
painful precision, “it has been the policy of the Dar¬ 
win School not to admit girls of the Hebrew faith.” 

Miriam stared at her with disbelieving eyes. 

“But, Miss Darwin, you knew I was a Jewish girl 
and I always felt I was welcome here.” 

“That was twenty years ago,” was the dry answer, 
“and things have changed a good deal since then. We 
have felt it necessary to make this rule to—well, to 
protect the daughters of our other patrons.” 

There was a dangerous glitter in Miriam’s eyes; 
but her voice was very calm. “I wish you’d explain 
just what you mean,” she said. 

Again Miss Darwin cleared her throat uneasily. 
Sometimes it is rather disconcerting to have the im¬ 
pulsive, warm-hearted little schoolgirl you remember 
come back to confront you as a well-poised woman of 
the world. But she did not flinch. 

“I don’t think I need to tell you, Miriam,” she said, 
“that some of your people are not—what shall I call 
it?—cultured. They have acquired enough wealth 
lately to pay our rather high tuition fees here; but 
their daughters lack certain qualities we expect of our 
girls. They are—I regret to say it, but I am sure you 
wish me to speak frankly—these girls are often im- 



TWENTY YEARS AFTER 


147 


possibly crude and nearly always ostentatious. And 
we must keep our atmosphere here free from vulgarity 
at all costs.” 

“By all means!” Miriam’s low voice had hardened 
a little. “But don’t you remember Lillian Norris who 
had a room next to mine while I was here? Her father 
was a Western oil millionaire or something like that, 
and poor Lillian was—well, a little crude, wasn’t she? 
But I believe she stayed here four years and gradu¬ 
ated with honors. We couldn’t help loving her, even 
if she was a little different, she was so jolly and sin¬ 
cere. And wasn’t my roommate, Laura Robertson, 
somewhat ostentatious?” Miriam laughed, but her 
laughter rang a little forced. “I wonder how many 
Jewish girls you’ve had here had to be disciplined 
oftener than poor old Laura for using perfume or wear¬ 
ing all her rings to church, or-” 

Miss Darwin raised a restraining hand. “My dear 
Miriam,” she protested. “It is not like you to be so 
unjust. I agree with you that sometimes our Chris¬ 
tian girls even here are lacking in the culture and re¬ 
finement that wealth and family are supposed to in¬ 
sure. I needn’t tell you how much I admire your 
people and how many Jews I consider as my very best 
friends. Your dear father, for example, who was so 
generous when we built the new dormitories. ' But, my 
dear child, I have to consider my patrons. I regret 
as deeply as you do that in the last few years there 
has risen—shall I call it prejudice?—against your won¬ 
derful people. Some of my patrons have told me very 
frankly that they do not care to send their daughters 
in the most suggestible years of their young lives to a 
school where they will mingle with Jewish girls. An 
unreasonable prejudice, of course, but I cannot afford 



148 THE TOWER OF DAVID 

to lose valued patrons. I am sure you understand, 
don’t you?” 

“I certainly do understand,” Miriam Davidson an¬ 
swered quietly. “Only I’m afraid that Beatrice will 
be terribly disappointed. For the last eight years I’ve 
promised to send her to my own old school—and I’ll 
have to go back to New York and tell her this.” 

Miss Darwin caught her two hands. “My dear 
child,” she exclaimed a little too warmly, “I hope 
you don’t think for a minute that our new ruling ap¬ 
plies to your own lovely little daughter. We will cer¬ 
tainly welcome Beatrice next term and do our best to 
make her happy here. And if there is the slightest 
objection to our making an exception in her case, I 
have only to say that she was registered on our list a 
long time before our new ruling was even thought of.” 

Miriam’s lips trembled. “That is very dear of you, 
Miss Darwin,” she answered. “But it would be im¬ 
possible to send my daughter here under such condi¬ 
tions. Beatrice is a proud little thing, and if she were 
ever to learn that she was here on sufferance—as an 
exception—she would never forgive me. Please take 
her name off the roll at once, Miss Darwin, and I’m 
sorry I’ve taken so much of your time. Good-by.” 

But Miss Darwin detained her. “My dear Miriam,” 
she remonstrated in gentle reproach, “I can’t have 
you go off like this—angry at me and your Alma 
Mater, too! I assure you that Beatrice will never 
feel the slightest discrimination—especially when it 
becomes known that she is the granddaughter of one 
of the donors of our new dormitories. And, being your 
daughter, she will make friends easily, for there never 


TWENTY YEARS AFTER 


149 


can exist the slightest prejudice against the better type 
of Jewish girls.” 

“I ? m afraid, Miss Darwin/’ Miriam told her with 
rather dangerous gentleness, “that we will never un¬ 
derstand each other on this point. I don’t know just 
what you mean by the better type of Jewish girls— 
and I don’t want to. If your school—my dear old 
Darwin School—won’t take in every Jewish girl as it 
takes every gentile girl for what she is—and for noth¬ 
ing else—I couldn’t trust my daughter to come here. 
Crudity and vulgarity are dangerous, but I’d rather 
have her exposed to them in a less exclusive school 
than to run the risk of having her come home in four 
years an incurable social snob.” 

She opened her check book, drew out her ink pencil 
and looked about the writing table for a blotter. 
“Thank you,” as Miss Darwin handed her one; “here 
is my annual check for the professors’ pension fund. 
I’ll keep on sending it every year, of course, for the 
sake of old times—if you’ll let me. I am sure my 
money will be just as welcome as you assured me my 
daughter would be,” she wanted to add, but bit back 
the satiric words. 

“I have always numbered you as one of my few girls 
who have never forgotten their old teachers here and 
what we owe to them,” Miss Darwin told her, after 
a covert glance to assure herself that the check was 
just as large as on former occasions. 

“And she’ll keep on answering all of our appeals,” 
Miss Darwin told her confidential secretary a few 
hours later, as they discussed enrollments for the mid¬ 
winter terms. “Especially after I urged her to let 
us make an exception of her daughter and take her in 


150 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


as a favor. It was a risk to suggest it, of course, but 
I remembered how high-spirited Miriam used to be— 
and I was right. But it would have been awkward if 
she’d have accepted.” 

“Oh, don’t feel so cut up about it,” Miriam’s hus¬ 
band consoled her about the same time. “There are 
other good schools—and you know it.” 

Miriam’s eyes filled with tears. “I know now there 
are much better schools for Beatrice,” she answered. 
“And that’s what hurts me so much. Ever since I was 
fourteen I’ve always thought the Darwin School was 
the finest school in the world.” 


A CEMETERY JEW 

The Queer Fate of a Jewish Skeptic 

TT all happened between the panic of the Chicago 
fire and the gilded glories of the World’s Fair. A 
handful of Chicago Jews, blown by the winds of for¬ 
tune from every corner of the globe, had founded a 
little congregation in that city some years before, and 
Abram Epstein belonged to it, less through piety 
than his inherited desire to rest in a Jewish cemetery 
after his death. 

For Abram Epstein had long ceased to be a faith¬ 
ful Jew according to the tenets of his European fathers. 
He had actually shaved off his ear-locks before em¬ 
barking for America, at the pier he had shed his long 
coat and yelled “hello” to the Landsmann who waited 
for him at the lower end of the gangplank; peddling 
through the Illinois countryside, it became very easy 
to forget certain food taboos, although Abram, as 
he once shamefacedly confessed to a friendly farmer 
entertaining him at dinner, couldn’t ever learn to 
stomach pork. For a few months he carried about at 
the bottom of his bag a worn Sidur; this he soon 
packed away with the grave clothes his girl wife had 
sewed for him before their marriage. Abram had long 
ago ceased to lament that she had died in childbed 
with the puny infant who had followed her a few days 
later; for he felt certain she would never have felt 
at home in this strange America. 

151 


152 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


But Abram himself was the sort of immigrant who 
takes to Americanization as a duck to water. The 
few English words he had learned on shipboard were 
soon supplemented with a vocabulary vigorous and 
slangy and extensive enough to cover the needs of a 
business man, although Abram never lost his accent 
until the day of his death. His Sabbath observances 
he had laid aside with his European clothes and ear- 
locks. It was hard enough to squeeze out a few pen¬ 
nies profit from the thrifty farm wives who haggled 
with him at their kitchen doors over buttons and 
thread and calico; how could he afford to lose a day’s 
profit every Saturday? 

“And what do I do if I don’t work on Shabbas?” he 
once told his conscience. “It ain’t possible for an 
active man like me to sit by the road and daven all day 
by myself.” 

Nor did Abram visit the synagogue even when he 
found himself in Chicago on a Saturday. Judaism, he 
was beginning to feel, was all right for foreigners. 
But how could a business man, prosperous and up to 
date, find edification in the long prayers in the an¬ 
tiquated language of his dead ancestors? As for the 
new rabbi they had hired and widely advertised as 
being modern and American—well, Abram could tell 
him a thing or two himself. A rabbi was all right to 
marry and bury people and teach their children, if 
they had any, but further than that Abram didn’t see 
anything in the whole outlandish business. 

But, of course, he belonged to the synagogue. He 
knew he had to if he wanted to be buried in the ceme¬ 
tery which the congregation had purchased for their 
members. Abram prided himself upon his modernity, 


A CEMETERY JEW 


153 


his liberalism, but he didn’t like to feel that he might 
be buried with goyim. He was willing to meet these 
same goyim in the smoking car and exchange jokes 
with them, jokes not always easy to understand, since 
an alien humor is not readily grasped by one who still 
thinks in a foreign idiom. He no longer felt qualms 
at eating at a table covered with a red cloth in some 
farm kitchen even though he knew the potatoes were 
fried in forbidden lard. Once when one of his old 
customers of the countryside asked him to attend his 
first-born’s christening, Abram actually entered the 
prim little white church and doffed his derby respect¬ 
fully as the minister prayed over the howling child. 
The Jew with centuries of suspicion and fear behind 
him felt himself reddening with shame: he wondered 
why the very stones in the graveyard just outside the 
window didn’t cry out “Meshumid” to him; why the 
ceiling did not crash upon his godless head. But the 
next Christmas, when another patron invited Abram 
to a church celebration, he felt a little more at home. 
He was friendly to the goyim and had learned not to 
shudder at their peculiar rites. Perhaps had there been 
a little more pressure brought to bear on Abram in 
those days, perhaps if he had had a little less sense 
of humor, or had loved a Christian woman, he might 
have definitely deserted the faith of his fathers. As 
it was, he remained a cemetery Jew. 

For Abram, with all his kindly feelings for the 
goyim, did not wish to lie with them in death, and 
the feeling grew with him with the passing years. Now 
he often forgot when the Holy Days came around, but 
he never neglected to pay his congregational dues. 
For he wanted to be sure that although he had no 


154 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


kith or kin to see him properly buried, his co-religion¬ 
ists would give him a proper sort of funeral, his own 
shroud and a plank coffin and all the rest. Perhaps— 
subconsciously he wished most of all for the funeral 
ritual he had heard over the bodies of his own dear 
ones; but as a hustling business man he had little time 
for prayers. 

Nestling right in the heart of the rich Illinois farm¬ 
ing country was the little village which we’ll disguise 
sufficiently by calling it Middlesex. Middlesex is no 
longer a village; its Main Street flaunts the posters of 
the two picture houses; a very modern hotel with ex¬ 
cellent sample rooms for traveling men has taken the 
place of the modest tavern where Abram used to lodge; 
two ice cream parlors have succeeded the town’s three 
saloons. While the old hitching-posts before the post 
office have disappeared with other moldy relics of the 
past, and on Saturday afternoons Main Street is 
crammed with fussy little Fords of progressive farmers 
who have come to town for the week’s groceries. 

In the old days Abram hated Middlesex with a most 
virulent hate, declaring, when safely out of the neigh¬ 
borhood, that he’d hate to be found dead in such a 
town. For it happened that Abram had once dealt 
not well but too wisely with a certain local storekeeper. 
He was very frank in his denunciations whenever 
Abram’s travels brought him into the neighborhood. 
Then, it being in the days when certain temperance 
lodges flourished in the Western villages, the local 
minister took occasion to denounce Abram for bring¬ 
ing certain suspicious looking bottles into the com¬ 
munity. 

Abram swore that he had brought the black bottles 


A CEMETERY JEW 


155 


to Middlesex urged through motives of pure friend¬ 
ship. Certain friends had asked him for the bottles of 
the best Scotch for rheumatism, snake bite and other 
ills of the flesh, so he had complied willingly, but, so 
help him God, he had lost money rather than made 
any profits on the transaction. But the local minister 
and his temperance cronies were not charitable enough 
to give Abram the benefit of the doubt; they denounced 
him from one end of Middlesex to the other; they 
even bullied the good-natured tavern keeper into telling 
Abram he had no vacant bed the next time the ped¬ 
dler came to town. As the tavern keeper had been 
one of the gentlemen to order the whisky from Chi¬ 
cago, Abram felt the cut rather deeply. 

He shunned Middlesex after that, even after he had 
turned the corner of his fiftieth year and had laid aside 
his peddler’s pack for a couple of neat suitcases and 
was able to travel from town to town by rail, even for 
short distances, instead of tramping the dusty roads. 
Things had gone well with Abram. He no longer ate 
his rye bread and cheese from a corner of his coat 
pocket, with furtive glances at his fellow passengers. 
Now he could afford to eat at the station restaurants 
and even on several gala occasions in the diner, where 
he felt exceedingly uncomfortable amid all the luxury 
of white linen, sparkling glass and cutlery. Leaning 
back in the smoking car, a ten-cent cigar between his 
teeth, he more than once sniffed contemptuously as the 
train stopped at Middlesex. 

“See that jay town?” was his invariable comment 
to anyone who happened to share his seat. “A regu¬ 
lar jay town—no push—no get-up about it. So help 
me God, I’d hate to be found dead there I” 


156 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Fate, who happens to be a malicious old lady with 
a soured sense of humor, decided that the incline a 
half mile north of Middlesex was a good place to upset 
an engine, the baggage car, the parlor car and all the 
day coaches. Upset them just as easily as a supersti¬ 
tious old dame turns over her teacup when she wants to 
peer among the grounds to read your fortune. Abram 
happened to be on one of the day coaches. In the 
quick blinding agony that swept over him just before 
the flaming timbers crashed down upon him and blotted 
out his sufferings, he thought, queerly enough, that it 
was a good thing he had only a couple of dollars in 
his wallet. Nobody would think it worth stealing, and 
then some kind soul would be sure to find his identi¬ 
fication card and notify the Burial Society back in 
Chicago. Abram was mighty glad at that moment he 
had been so regular in paying his congregational dues. 
They would have to bury him in grand style and the 
rabbi would have to preach a grand sermon over him, 
even if he had eaten trefa all these years and hadn’t 
gone to schul last Yom Kippur. 

But Fate, even shrewder than Abram, managed to 
cheat him out of his burial. By the time the people 
of Middlesex helped to take the mangled bodies out 
of the wreck, what was left of Abram Epstein showed 
not a trace of the wallet and the identification card. 
The corpse lay for several days in the morgue, but no 
one came to identify and claim it. For why should 
the members of the Burial Society back home in Chi¬ 
cago, reading of the catastrophe in the morning papers, 
jump to the conclusion that Abram Epstein, whom they 
hadn’t seen for years, was in the wreck? 

There were two other bodies besides Abram’s in the 


A CEMETERY JEW 


157 


morgue and the kindly townspeople decided to give 
them all a Christian burial. A collection was taken 
up for a funeral and the local undertaker was in¬ 
duced to supply three coffins at a wholesale rate. The 
Dorcas Society of the Methodist Church furnished 
flowers, and Father Kelly sent over to ask whether 
there was to be a Catholic service in case one or more 
of the dead happened to have belonged to his church. 
For Father Kelly had served as chaplain in the Civil 
War, and had buried all sorts of unidentified unbe¬ 
lievers without a single qualm of conscience. 

But the Rev. Arthur Dinsdale of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, the very gentleman who had for¬ 
merly denounced Abram and his whisky bottles, an¬ 
swered politely but firmly that he preferred his own 
burial service. Which he read with much unction 
over the three graves dug in the least attractive cor¬ 
ner of the graveyard. Naturally you couldn’t give the 
choicest locations to unknown paupers. 

So Abram Epstein, after all his wanderings, went 
to his bed at last, with a farewell prayer from an alien 
clergyman to wish him God-speed, as strangers buried 
him in the town he had scorned to be found dead in. 


THE RETURN OF AKIBA 

An Idyl For Lag B’omer 

T HE sunset blossomed like a rose beyond the village 
gate; the women passed to and fro, their pitchers 
poised upon their dark heads, pausing for a moment’s 
gossip as they drew water from the well. From the 
gently swaying trees came the low chirpings of drowsy 
birds. 

Down the dusty road came a little group of men, 
travel-stained and weary; each bore a traveler’s staff 
in his hand, each had girded his loins as though for a 
long journey. 

All save one viewed the little village with indiffer¬ 
ence, for they had passed many on the road that 
stretched from Dan to Beersheba, and would pass many 
more. But the eyes of their leader glistened with a 
strange light—a long-exiled man, he again gazed upon 
his home. 

“Let us rest here a moment,” he said, and the others 
paused near the well, grateful for the cool water. He 
who led his disciples to study in the schools of Baby¬ 
lon was a tall, straight man, vigorous and hardy, his 
broad shoulders contrasted strangely with his dreamy 
eyes and scholar’s forehead. 

He spoke again, his eyes furtively seeking a mean 
little hut a bit beyond them, almost hidden behind the 
stunted olive trees. “Go into the village,” he com¬ 
manded, “and ask for food and drink that we may 
be refreshed upon our journey. Say that you are the 
158 


THE RETURN OF AKIRA 


159 


disciples of a master who journeys to the great Acad¬ 
emy, but tell no man my name.” He sank upon a 
rock by the wayside and drew his cloak about his face. 

The younger men passed into the village, breaking 
up into little groups of twos and threes as they passed 
down the quiet twilight streets. One only remained 
behind, a youth with a dark face singularly twisted 
and distorted, his eyes smoldering with fires, almost 
spent yet ready to leap up in a moment in devastating 
fury. He hesitated a moment, then respectfully 
touched his teacher’s shoulder. 

“Akiba, my master,” he said softly, “what troubles 
you?” 

Akiba rose and looked toward the mean little hut 
with yearning eyes. “Go with the others, Seth, my 
son,” he told the youth, “for I would be alone with 
my thoughts.” 

Seth’s sensitive face twisted as though in sudden 
pain. “I would not go with them,” he answered al¬ 
most sullenly. “They will go from house to house 
and speak with the women who give them food and 
drink. And I would have no word with women!” 

“Nay, Seth, my son,” chided the rabbi, and there 
was a hint of mockery in his gentle voice, “forget 
your foolish fear of womankind. It is not seemly in 
a son of Israel.” 

“You know my story,” the boy spoke passionately, 
“how I forgot the laws of our people and made merry 
with the heathen . . . how I sinned again and again, 
and even now after months of study and solitude am 
still too unclean and polluted with vice to mingle with 
my fellow students or sit at your feet and listen to 
your teachings. Yet you would have me mingle freely 


160 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


with women—talk with them—look into their faces— 
and again be tempted to my undoing!” His voice 
rose shrill and uneven. For a moment he seemed to 
forget that he addressed one of the greatest teachers 
in Israel. “And you, O my master, do not well when 
you fail to warn us, your disciples, against these crea¬ 
tures of lust who lead men into sin.” 

He stopped confused before the quiet rebuke in 
Akiba’s eyes. Never before, even in his greatest pas¬ 
sion, had he dared to rebuke his master. Now he 
stood flushed and abashed, awaiting his wrath. But 
when the rabbi spoke his voice was very gentle. 

“Nay, my son,” said Akiba, “you do not well to lay 
the weight of man’s passions and appetites to the 
charge of women. True, some guide our feet into 
evil ways; but the love between a true man and a true 
woman is a holy thing, since God Himself has blessed 
it. Once,” and his voice grew dreamy, while his eyes 
looked far away, “once, my son, I knew such a love 
and it has sanctified my whole life.” 

“I did not know—” stammered the youth. 

“Nay, and how could you understand? I would 
not have you speak of this to the others, Seth, but 
when I was a youth, even as you are, I was not only 
ignorant of the teachings of our fathers, but scorned 
our teachers and our holy men. But a woman taught 
me to love God through my love for her.” 

They were seated now in the growing darkness. 
Here and there a lamp glowed in a window or a 
woman’s voice stole softly to them singing a lullaby. 

“I was but a poor shepherd, unknown and ignorant; 
she was the only child of a rich landowner, an heiress, 
famed alike for her beauty and her wealth, sought 


THE RETURN OF AKIBA 


161 


by many suitors. Yet through a miracle of God, a 
love for me, unworthy as I was, stole into her heart, 
and one day she told me of her love. 

“For my sake she was willing to leave her father’s 
home, to give up the comfort and luxury she must 
surely forfeit, should she wed a beggar. She made 
but one condition, that after we were wed I should 
seek to acquire learning with some great teacher in 
Israel. 

“Her father cast us out; she who had known a life 
of pleasantness became a beggar, even as I was, and 
together we went forth to share poverty and hardship 
—rejoicing because we loved each other. It was she, 
Rachel, who sent me far from her side ten years ago, 
willing to toil for her daily bread that I might study 
in the Academy and drink deeply of the Torah. I was 
too poor to make the journey and she cut off her long 
beautiful hair, that with the gold pieces she received 
for it I might buy food and drink and raiment while 
I studied. All this did one woman do for me . . . 
that I might become a scholar in Israel. Shall I not 
praise her all my days?” 

The disciple nodded, his passionate face strangely 
softened. A few women, one of them carrying a sleep¬ 
ing child upon her shoulder, strolled toward the well 
and stood gossiping as they filled their pitchers. 
Akiba arose and turned longingly toward the little hut 
half hidden by the stunted olive trees. 

“If I could see her again!” he murmured. 

“She is here?” asked Seth. 

“Yea, it was in that very house that I bade her fare¬ 
well ten years ago. Tonight as we journey, I would 
see her if only for a moment. ... I only wish to carry 


162 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


away the memory of her face to cheer me in my exile. 
I know I must go on, for if I stay here and take upon 
myself the joys and cares of family life—” His eyes 
wandered wistfully toward the sleeping child the woman 
carried. “It is best I consecrate myself to the Torah, 
but it is very hard,” he said simply. 

Suddenly he caught Seth’s arm, his face whitening. 
A woman had come from the little hut, and now walked 
toward the well, her pitcher poised upon her shoulder. 
Her garments while exquisitely neat showed mean and 
worn in the pale moonlight; there were coarse sandals 
upon her feet. 

“Rachel—my wife!” murmured Akiba and the 
words were like a prayer. He drew Seth farther into 
the shadows. 

The evening wind carried to them, hidden in the 
shadows, the voices of the women gossiping about the 
well, and their laughter, suddenly turned to mockery 
as Rachel approached. 

“Peace be with you.” She spoke quietly and lowered 
the bucket in the well. 

“Can there be peace for a deserted wife?” laughed 
a maiden as she lifted her pitcher, ready to depart. 

“Deserted for ten years!” jeered another. 

“And you still insist that he lingers in the Academy 
to study the Law?” the first speaker laughed mali¬ 
ciously. “Yet he never returns to your side, even for 
a day. Have you asked the scholars who have come to 
us this day whether your husband will follow them?” 

“Not after ten years!” one jeered, and Rachel 
shrank beneath their cruel laughter. “Who seeks the 
wife of his youth after ten years’ absence?” 

Rachel drew herself up proudly; for all her ragged 


THE RETURN OF AKIBA 


163 


robe, she looked like a queen as she stood defying them 
all, the moonlight falling softly upon her calm face. 

“If Akiba were to come to me this night,” she an¬ 
swered her tormentors clearly, “I would bid him re¬ 
turn to his studies for another ten years.” She turned 
quietly away and walked to the lean little hut where 
she dwelt in her poverty and loneliness. 

“You heard her?” Akiba demanded, turning to Seth, 
his face glowing with pride. “Ah, I must not weaken 
now—for her sake. Yet if I could but give her a 
word of comfort to stay her during the long years I 
must still remain from her side!” 

Now the last of the women had left the well; from 
Rachel’s hut gleamed a tiny taper. Signing Seth to 
remain behind, Akiba walked toward the little house, 
his face white and drawn in the moonlight. He drew 
his mantle closely about his head and knocked upon 
the low door. 

Rachel stood on the threshold, looking out upon him 
with puzzled eyes. Her eyes held shadows, her mouth 
drooped wearily; yet her beauty smote him and tore 
at his heart as her fairness had never done in the olden 
days when Rachel had given herself to him in the 
freshness and loveliness of her youth. 

“I am a student,” he told her, striving to speak in a 
disguised voice, “and I come from the Academy where 
Akiba sits among the teachers.” 

Her hand clutched at her throat; she spoke with 
difficulty. 

“Yes? What message did he send to me?” 

“He said that I should seek out his wife Rachel and 
ask her whether she wanted for naught in his absence?” 

Rachel’s sad eyes wandered back into her bare little 


164 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


house, then fell upon her work-worn hands. “I have 
bread to eat and water to drink,” she answered. “I 
work at the loom from dawn until darkness; that 
leaves me very tired, but it is better to sleep.” 

“It is the desire of Akiba’s heart to travel to the 
great Academy, to study the Law among the teachers 
in that far place. But then he could not return to you 
for many years. Are you willing to have him go?” 

“Were he here I should bid him go and stay until 
his thirst for learning is satisfied,” she answered 
bravely. 

“But if there were time for him to return to you 
for a few hours—or, perhaps, a day-” 

Suddenly her longing flashed forth, enveloping them 
both in a scorching flame. “No—no—he must not 
come back to bid me farewell,” she cried fiercely. “It 
would be too hard to say good-by to him for a second 
time. Tell him this—-tell him not to come.” 

“And this is your only message?” asked Akiba. 

“Yes,” she answered, drying her eyes and facing 
him calmly once more. “Tell him I am well—and very 
happy.” 

As the disciples passed along the road to Babylon, 
Akiba strode at their head, his face white, bearing the 
look of a conqueror who has tasted the bitterness of 
death in his triumph. While Rachel, weeping on her 
lonely bed, sobbed far into the night. 

“Akiba, Akiba,” she murmured again and again. 
“You thought I did not know your voice—the look 
of your dear hands. Why did I not keep you even 
for an hour? But I did not dare to have you bid me 
farewell a second time.” 



INTERMARRIAGE 

A New Twist to an Old Problem 

“OOMETIMES the most horrible examples of inter- 
^ marriage occur between two Jews,” Reba declared 
to herself with all the furious certainty of her twenty- 
two years. She sat curled upon one of the low book¬ 
cases beneath her fifth-story window, basking in her 
hour of sunshine—there isn’t much of it in a New York 
flat!—as she vigorously rubbed her hair with a Turkish 
towel. The girl smiled to hear a wheezy hand-organ in 
the street below grind out the eternally new rebellion 
of the “Marseillaise.” At that moment it was less the 
unchained fury of downtrodden French peasants than 
the fierce joy of all imprisoned souls tasting their first 
freedom. And because she, too, was enjoying her free¬ 
dom and finding it good, Reba smiled on the little 
brown organ-grinder like a brother as she tossed a coin 
to the pavement below. . . . 

It hadn’t seemed at all like an intermarriage at first, 
for Frank Schwartz’s people, according to their own 
standards, were good and sincere Jews. Not orthodox 
like Reba’s people, which gave her a feeling of satis¬ 
faction, since she had long ago broken away from the 
old-world orthodoxy of her parents. In fact, when she 
first met Frank, then a senior at Columbia, she was 
rooming with a girl friend near the college campus, 
supporting herself through her junior year by tutoring 
and odd jobs in the library. She was friendly enough 
165 


166 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


with the rather simple people who had given her birth 
and always carried her mother some little gift when 
she paid one of her flying visits to the East Side; for 
their sakes she even sat through the well-nigh endless 
holy day services every autumn. But she never con¬ 
sidered herself a Jew—at least in any but a racial 
sense—until she left New York. 

Frank met her at some protest meeting or other and 
straightway fell in love with her. He often went to 
radical gatherings in those days, taking his full sup 
of liberalism before he prepared to settle down to the 
wise conservatism expected in the son of the leading 
clothier in a sedate Western town. His father had 
frowned upon the thought of any career but business 
for his only son; college he looked upon as a harmless 
frill, not any more important than the term at a fash¬ 
ionable finishing school he gave his two daughters. 
Irma and Louise came back to Waterbury quite fin¬ 
ished for the career of a fashionable marriage; they 
dressed well and knew a little society patter and danced 
divinely. Of course, they brought back no radical or 
ultra-modern ideas in their trunks, along with their 
ultra-fashionable wardrobes. Frank, who had rubbed 
against all manner of men and ideas while in college, 
did feel vaguely dissatisfied for a month or two after 
his return to Waterbury. But he soon became a sober, 
efficient member of the Temple Sociables and the 
Rotary Club, and never failed at dinner parties to 
lament the hardships of the exploited capitalistic class. 
His mother, perhaps, was right in saying that he was 
much safer (whatever that meant!) than if he had 
actually married that dreadful girl. 

He would have married the dreadful girl had not the 


INTERMARRIAGE 


167 


little gods who preside over the Chuppah, or their 
modern equivalent, arranged that Reba should spend 
her mid-year holidays in the home of her fiance’s 
people. She was in her senior year now, while Frank, 
who had graduated the previous June, had gone back 
to Waterbury. Rather reluctantly, as he had longed 
to take a post-graduate course, but his father decided 
that four years of college were quite adequate. He 
insisted upon at least a year of business before Frank’s 
marriage. And Frank, who was a pleasant chap and 
didn’t like to disagree with his parents, was satisfied. 
He told Reba confidently he could keep up his reading 
in the evening; after they were married they’d try to 
organize a few choice spirits into a Civic Club—no 
bridge but plenty of gray matter and unlimited dis¬ 
cussion. Rosy dreams, and Reba was just as enthu¬ 
siastic as her lover; he had forgotten the narrowness 
of the social circle of his boyhood; she had never even 
imagined a place like Waterbury. 

So she went there for a visit during her mid-year 
holidays. Sitting in her New York bedroom as she 
dried her hair, she recalled every incident of her stay 
in Waterbury, terminating in the talk she had had 
with her lover after the dance on New Year’s eve. The 
rest of Frank’s family had gone to bed and the two 
young people lingered for a word or two before the 
comforting gas log in the living room fireplace. It 
was a fine large room, with deep windows; furniture 
conventional but in good taste; several Oriental rugs 
on the floor, and on the walls pictures that were rather 
well chosen by sister Irma, who had taken an art 
course at finishing school. Even at that poignant 
moment Reba noted that the only books in the room 


168 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


were several popular novels Louise had thrown on the 
davenport. She thought, with a throb of homesickness, 
of the shabby Hebrew books crowded along the walls 
of her mother’s stuffy kitchen; her father was a poor 
man but he loved books better than bread; she thought 
also of her own little bedroom where her beloved vol¬ 
umes—often bought at a real sacrifice—overflowed the 
cases and lay upon table and window-seat and dresser. 
But there were no books to speak of in this house— 
only the ones Frank had brought from college and 
stowed away in his own room upstairs. 

“Did you have a good time?” began the man. 

“No.” Her voice was sullen and she did not raise 
her eyes, “You know I didn’t.” 

“I’m sorry. I know you never did care much for 
dances—” he trailed off lamely, for in the old free life 
they had once known together they would have both 
laughed at the absurdity of wasting a precious evening 
as they had wasted this. 

“I like good times, too,” she said after a moment, 
and now his lover’s ear detected a slow anger burning 
beneath her quiet words. “But since I’ve been in this 
house I’ve spent—do you know how we’ve spent every 
evening?” 

“Having a good time!” He laughed uneasily. 
“You know how popular my folks are, so people have 
entertained a good deal for you.” 

“And how?” She sank upon the couch before the 
fire, clenching her small fists in the lap of her gray 
silk dress. Frank gazed down at her appreciatively. 
It was a simple frock and inexpensive, but it brought 
out the rich warmth of her glowing beauty far better 
than a more sophisticated toilette could have achieved. 


INTERMARRIAGE 


169 


He liked, too, the simplicity of her hair, gathered in 
a great loose knot, the modest cut of her bodice. He 
had seen his sisters raise their eyebrows when she had 
first appeared in this party dress, the only one she had 
brought for the many affairs of Waterbury’s holiday 
season; but he was not troubled. Irma and Louise 
even in their “imported rags” (as he irreverently 
dubbed them) were not above feeling envy of their 
prospective sister-in-law’s beauty—and of showing it. 

“How have your friends in Waterbury tried to give 
me a good time?” she repeated. “I’ll tell you.” She 
enumerated slowly, counting on her ringless fingers, 
beautiful tapering fingers which were her heritage from 
some not ignoble Ghetto ancestor: “Monday—cards; 
Tuesday—luncheon at the hotel with a group of flap¬ 
pers who tried to make conversation by talking about 
New York musical shows they were justing ‘dying’ to 
see; in the evening a dance, ending with a supper where 
enough food was wasted to keep a dozen children in 
your slums well fed for a month; Wednesday—another 
luncheon at your Mrs. Grossmith’s-” 

“She’s the leading Jewish woman in this town.” His 
voice had grown slightly resentful. “It was mighty 
nice of her to entertain for you.” 

“And she’s the leading Jewish woman in this town? 
My God!” the girl was frankly horrified. “She can’t 
talk well, she’s not educated, she hasn’t an idea in her 
head and her social outlook wouldn’t be too advanced 
for the Stone Age. Why, she spent half the meal 
lamenting how hard it was to get good help when the 
foolish girls preferred to work in the factories. Then 
she took the opportunity to rant about the unions— 
she knows nothing about them, but was quoting her 


170 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


fat-headed husband, I suppose!—and finished with the 
horrible example of the factory girl who spends half 
of her enormous salary on silk stockings. I was so 
wild by that time, I asked her whether it was any more 
shocking to spend your hard-earned money on such 
trash than to get them by being nice to some man who 
can afford to buy them for you. Which is what these 
lazy, idle married women do! Then she kept still and 
let the others gab.” 

“You shouldn’t have talked like that: she’s never 
thought and read and studied the way we have, 
but-” 

“Then what right does she have to be the ‘leading 
Jewish woman in town’? Because she knows how to 
plan an overelaborate luncheon, or can afford to have 
an extra maid to help her poor overworked guests take 
off their wraps? I hate her and all she stands for!” 

“You can’t reform people like her in a day,” he 
warned her. 

“You can’t reform them in a century merely by 
guzzling and dancing and playing cards with them. 
Not that I want to reform them—God forbid! Your 
rabbi is paid for that and the way the ladies raved 
over him at Mrs. Grossmith’s, I guess he’s not reform¬ 
ing them hard enough to lose his job. Mrs. Appelbaum 
said it was such a joy to have a liberal-minded man in 
the pulpit; it seems that more goyism than Jews came 
to hear the Christmas sermon. And he had thanked her 
so beautifully when she sent his little boy a Christmas 
present. Mighty different from the back number they 
had last year who wouldn’t play cards on Friday night 
after Temple and said Jews shouldn’t exchange Christ¬ 
mas gifts!” 



INTERMARRIAGE 


171 


“I don’t understand you.” He left his place on the 
hearth rug and sat beside her. “Now you’re raving 
about our rabbi and the fact that we don’t keep the 
Sabbath the way your father does. But you’ve always 
told me you didn’t feel Jewish.” 

“Wait a minute. I’m not through with my diary 
yet! Wednesday afternoon we thought we’d have five 
minutes together, didn’t we? But the Ransons took 
us out in their machine that I ‘might see Waterbury.’ 
I didn’t want to see your fool library and Farmers’ 
Bank and the park; I wanted to see your Settlement 
House and your Baby Clinic and your slums. Re¬ 
member what Mrs. Ranson said: ‘We never go over 
on the West Side if we can help it. You can catch 
anything from those kikes.’ And we talk about the 
dear goyim having prejudices! 

“Another dance on Wednesday night and on Thurs¬ 
day-” 

He interrupted her impatiently. “You’re really un¬ 
just, Reba. You know my sisters are doing society 
and they’re young and have to enjoy themselves. If 
you lived here-” 

“I’d be expected to be like them. None of the young 
girls or married women I’ve met here do an hour’s 
productive work a day if they can afford to have it 
done for them. Oh, yes, I know your mother spends 
half a morning in her kitchen sometimes slaving over 
a fussy dessert, but that’s not work. She’d have nerv¬ 
ous prostration if she had to scrub her kitchen floor 
the way my mother does and clean the fish every 
Friday. And I don’t call sewing a few dresses for the 
Orphan Asylum the way they did at the ‘Ladies’ Aid’ 
Thursday real work. Several of the older women did 




172 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


work steadily; most of them were too busy talking 
about that nasty Marcuson divorce case to finish their 
jobs. And about a fourth of them came from some 
card party or other and left before the speaker was 
half through. They had the English professor from 
the high school and his lecture was so simple they 
wouldn’t have been bored if they’d stopped giggling 
and whispering long enough to listen to him.” 

“Do you think it’s exactly good manners to talk like 
that about people who have tried to be nice to us?” 
he demanded. 

She laughed harshly. “Good manners! I’ve never 
seen such rotten manners in my life. These elegant 
ladies would be shocked at my mother’s table manners, 
but where I was brought up it was considered good 
breeding to observe the Sabbath. And tonight your 
Temple Sociables had their New Year’s eve dance— 
on a Friday night.” 

“You’ve always said you weren’t religious!” 

“I’m not. What shocks me is the ghastly hypocrisy 
of these people who pretend to be good Jews and belong 
to a Temple they desert on Friday night because they 
prefer jazz. It’s that way at every turn. You pretend 
to be good Jews and you snub a scholar and a gentle¬ 
man like old Mr. Levine because he speaks with an 
accent. You pretend to be charitable and I heard your 
own father say that he was going to drop his subscrip¬ 
tion to the Consumptive Home because business was 
getting tight and he couldn’t afford to support every¬ 
thing. But he could afford a new car last month—he 
could afford-” 

He caught her hands, tried to kiss her. “Reba, try 
to look at things a little sensibly. You’ve got to fit 



INTERMARRIAGE 


173 


into this environment after we’re married; try to be 
a little charitable now. I know how it strikes you at 
first,” he confessed. “I know how it sickened me. 
But father’s right; you can’t change everything in a 
hurry. You’ve got to overlook a lot of things and get 
used to it—as I did.” 

She flung him off. “Yes, you’re used to it! You’ve 
deserted the ideals, the hopes you found in college; 
you belong to these people. But, thank God, I don’t. 
And I never shall.” Her voice suddenly grew very 
quiet. “Tomorrow I am going back to my people.” 

He willfully misunderstood her. “You mean your 
father and mother and the life you wanted to escape 
from?” 

She shook her head. “No—for they aren’t my people 
any longer—not any more than yours are.” Suddenly 
she flung out her slim young arms in a gesture so sincere 
it did not seem theatric. “I belong to the workers and 
the dreamers. I’m going back to finish my term at 
college and then I’m going to work hard—and dream 
hard. Maybe,” whimsically, “I may discover a Juda¬ 
ism I can accept; not the Judaism of the past genera¬ 
tion, not the hollow sham you people here call your 
religion. Even now I’m too Jewish for the Judaism 
you practice. I couldn’t marry a goy like you; I 
couldn’t live with a group of people like your family 
and their friends: it would be much harder than marry¬ 
ing a Christian. We don’t understand each other any 
longer; and that’s the most terrible kind of intermar¬ 
riage.” 

Turning swiftly, she ran up the stairs to the dainty 
pink and white guest room. She threw herself across 


174 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


the lacy bed and hid her face in her arms; but she did 
not cry. . . . 

Back in her little New York bedroom, tossing her 
tangled hair as she listened to the music of the “Mar¬ 
seillaise,” Reba smiled to hear the eternal battle cry 
of all imprisoned souls tasting their first freedom. 


A MOTHER OF BETHLEHEM 

A Story for Shabuotk 

T HE warm sunlight flowed into the window of the 
little house of Naomi of Bethlehem, the house 
where she had borne the two sons who had died in 
Moab across the Jordan. A widow without children, 
she had returned to the home of her childhood with 
Ruth, her daughter-in-law, at her side. Ruth, the 
widow of Mahlon, a woman of Moab, had deserted her 
home and kin for the sake of Naomi, her mother-in-law, 
refusing to desert her in her old age. . . . And now 
Naomi, in trembling doubt and impatience, waited for 
her to return from the threshing-floor of Boaz. 

Sitting by the window, the morning sunshine falling 
upon her gray hair and sorrowful face, Naomi remem¬ 
bered all that had come to pass since her return to. 
Bethlehem. Naomi, who had gone forth a wealthy 
woman, rejoicing in her husband and her two strong 
young sons, had returned a sorrowing widow with no 
stay in life but the frail girl who drooped at her side. 
She who had known abundance might have suffered 
want had not Ruth gone forth into the harvest fields of 
Boaz, the rich kinsman of Naomi, there to gather the 
gleanings of the reapers, consecrated by the Law of 
Moses to the fatherless and the poor. 

Naomi recalled her fears for Ruth the morning the 
girl had set out for the harvest fields of Boaz; even 
in the coarse garments she had worn since her widow- 
175 


176 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


hood, Ruth’s young beauty shone forth so radiantly 
that Naomi had bade her a little harshly to veil her 
face should she meet with rudeness from the young 
men who worked among the reapers. Later she re¬ 
pented of her sharp voice, for Ruth, who was docile 
in all things, had never been guilty of boldness or im¬ 
modesty. Yet a pain stirred in Naomi’s jealous mother 
heart as she realized that her dead son Mahlon was 
deprived of his wife’s sweetness and beauty even in the 
days of his youth. 

The summer days passed until the barley harvest 
was over, and every night Ruth, weary from her toil 
among the gleaners, returned with her arms filled with 
gleanings. As they sat in the dusk together she told 
many tales of the kindness of the reapers, who gave 
her the best of the gleanings; and she spoke often of 
Boaz, the master of them all, who had asked her to sit 
and break bread with him during the noonday meal, 
and gave her to drink from his own cup. And Naomi 
had listened with heart strangely torn between joy and 
anger, joy that the thing she had hardly dared to 
dream might come to pass, anger that Ruth, who had 
known her son’s love, had so soon learned to forget 
his devotion and the few months of happiness they had 
known together. . . . But she kept her thoughts un¬ 
spoken and encouraged Ruth to speak of Boaz, her 
kinsman, and a rich landowner in Bethlehem. 

Now the end of the barley and of the wheat harvest 
had come and Naomi feared that the daily communion 
between Boaz, master of the reapers, and Ruth might 
come to an end and that her dreams would thus end 
in emptiness. And so, the night before, when she knew 
that Boaz, according to the custom of that day, slept 


A MOTHER OF BETHLEHEM 


177 


upon the threshing floor, Naomi had called Ruth before 
her and had placed upon her certain strange com¬ 
mands. With her own hands Naomi decked the girl 
in her own bridal garments, delicate robes of white 
and silver, the sole remainder of her former wealth; 
she braided the girl’s red hair with pearls, and placed 
bracelets and anklets upon her, wrapping her in a 
dark mantle and veil that those who passed upon the 
road might not spy upon her beauty. And then she 
had commanded the young woman to go to Boaz as 
he kept watch upon the threshing-floor, reminding him 
that none of his house had remembered the law that 
when a man dies without children, his next of kin must 
marry the widow lest his line die forever in Israel. 

Ruth had flushed and paled, but had said no word, 
for she spoke little when deeply moved. At last she 
had said slowly: “And you would have me wed again?” 

“If he weds you,” answered Naomi, evading the 
question, and hating herself for the evasion, “if Boaz 
weds you, the line of my son, Mahlon, need not die out 
in Israel, and I may still hold a grandchild upon my 
knee.” 

And Ruth had answered nothing. Drawing her veil 
closely about her face, she had left Naomi in the door¬ 
way, walking down the road white with moonlight as 
proudly as a young queen who goes to her coronation. 
And the older woman had watched her with increasing 
bitterness in her heart, for the girl seemed glad to seek 
out a new lover, while she, Naomi, knew she would 
never cease to mourn the husband of her youth. 

Naomi thought of all these things, brooding over 
Ruth’s hardness of heart as she sat waiting for her to 
return. “A heathen woman at heart!” she muttered. 


178 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


“A true daughter of Moab! Well do I remember the 
tears she shed over Mahlon’s funeral bed. And now 
because Boaz is young and good to look upon and very 
rich, she gives herself to him gladly and looks eagerly 
for the day of her espousals. No daughter of Israel 
could prove herself so faithless to a husband she pre¬ 
tended to love.” Thus mused Naomi, her mother love 
for her dead son helping her to forget how Ruth had 
left native land and kinsfolk for her sake, caring for 
her as tenderly as though she had been of her own 
blood. 

She looked up to see Ruth standing before her. 
“Well?” she asked, and anxiety made her voice harsh 
and shrill. “What of Boaz?” 

Ruth opened her mantle before she spoke. “These 
six measures of barley did Boaz give me,” she answered, 
displaying the gift she brought with her, “and he has 
promised that he will act the kinsman’s part to me.” 
She sighed a little, her sad eyes looking through the 
open window toward the hills of Moab, her home which 
lay beyond the Jordan. 

“He said,” continued Ruth, “that there was one 
nearer of kin to my husband’s house than he. But if 
Boaz could buy the land of your husband for himself, 
then Boaz will have the right to wed me. Today he 
goes to meet the elders at the gate that they may talk 
of this thing among themselves.” 

Naomi rose heavily from her seat, the old anger 
for Ruth’s heartlessness stirring within her, mingled 
with joy that Boaz would redeem her son’s inheritance 
and perhaps raise children in his stead. 

“I know Boaz,” she said at last, “and that he will 


A MOTHER OF BETHLEHEM 


179 


not rest until he has finished this thing. . . .You will 
be happy with Boaz for he is a good and honorable 
man.” 

“I was happy with Mahlon,” answered Ruth softly, 
her eyes looking again toward Moab, where Mahlon 
had led her from her father’s house to his own. 

“Think no longer of Mahlon,” commanded Naomi, 
again speaking harshly, “for you are young and can¬ 
not live with the dead. No doubt Orpah, the wife 
of Chilion, his brother, is already wed and has for¬ 
gotten even his name. You need not mourn for him 
for you go to a new home and a new joy. Let me 
mourn in your stead; it will not be hard for me for I am 
his mother.” 

“Yes, you are his mother,” answered Ruth, a strange 
wistfulness in her gentle face, and again she looked 
toward Moab. 

Then a strong constraint grew up between the two 
women and they spoke only of indifferent things, nor 
was their silence broken until the day when Naomi 
stood beside the couch of Ruth and took the new-born 
child from her arms. And Naomi wept in her joy for 
she knew now that the name of her son Mahlon would 
never perish in Israel. 

From the next room she could hear the women of 
Bethlehem, friends of her youth, rejoicing in her new¬ 
found joy. She heard their voices rising and falling 
in their festal song: 

“There is a son born to Naomi; 

A son born to her in her old age! 

She who was without children will nurse him; 

And she shall be as his mother unto him.” 


180 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Naomi stole a glance toward the bed and saw tears 
coursing down the young mother’s white cheeks. A 
sudden tenderness stole over her as she placed the 
child on Ruth’s breast. 

“You do not mind what they sing?” she asked. 
“They are old friends, old women like myself whose 
days are nearly over. So they rejoice with me that I 
am not left a withered tree, doomed to perish. They 
are glad that I and my sons are renewed in this child 
—who will be a son to both of us.” 

“Nay, I do not envy you though it is your name they 
sing, not mine,” answered Ruth as she gazed upon the 
little one. A foolish young mother with her first son, 
she dreamed like all other fond mothers that some day 
her child might rise to a fair place before all Israel. 
But with her the dreams were not so wonderful as that 
which came to pass. How could the simple girl from 
Moab foresee that this child’s grandson would be the 
fair-haired shepherd boy, David, who would bring glory 
to all Israel as he sat upon his golden throne in high 
Jerusalem? Who was there to whisper that in the 
days to come when all Israel would be scattered and 
broken, that many mothers, weak, yet radiant upon 
their child-beds, would dream that their sons, descend¬ 
ants of the seed of David, might be the long-prayed-for 
Messiah of their people? 

“At last I can praise God for His goodness, for He 
hath not deserted me in my old age,” chanted Naomi. 
“For it was not for my husband that I mourned alone, 
nor for my sons, but I grieved that our name should 
perish in Israel.” 

“Mother,” said Ruth, and a look of pain swept her 
white face, “mother, speak not of this to anyone, but I 


A MOTHER OF BETHLEHEM 


181 


would this had been Mahlon’s son. When Boaz took 
me for his wife, his kindness and his love softened my 
grief for Mahlon, my dead husband, and I thought my 
joy in the child would ease my heart. But now I 
grieve afresh that it is not Mahlon who rejoices in our 
first-born and calls him son.” 

“Forgive me, forgive me,” cried Naomi, “for I 
thought that you had long ago forgotten Mahlon. And 
you seemed so willing to marry Boazl” 

Ruth smiled her pardon into the withered face that 
bent above her. “I knew Mahlon would forgive me if 
I wedded again,” she answered, “for I did not wish 
to die until I had borne a son.” 











PART II 


THE STORY AND 
THE LITERARY PROGRAM 










PART II 


Section i: Selection and Preparation of the 
Story 

TN preparing this book of material and programs, 
I have followed the type of programs most fre¬ 
quently presented by literary clubs through the country, 
a program of music and discussions, combined with the 
reading of short stories and plays. We need not dis¬ 
cuss here what courses of study should be followed 
in connection with the purely entertaining features 
of the program; we already have such excellent guides 
as the material on Jewish Music by Irma Reinhardt 
Cohon and the collection of essays on Jewish Prayer 
compiled by Mrs. Felix Levy, both prepared under 
the auspices of the National Council of Jewish Women 
for Council study circles. 

But here we are interested with programs chiefly as 
entertainment, and in the entertainment program we 
can find no substitute for the short story. Do not mis¬ 
understand me: the short story need not appear in 
every program during the year; it need not appear 
more than two or three times during the season, al¬ 
though if carefully selected, you may read a story at 
each program month after month and still have your 
audience crying for more. By short story, I mean a 
narrative that may be read in twenty minutes or less; 
for this reason I am not touching upon two excellent 
features of literary programs, the novel and the play. 
185 


186 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


These are admirable in the hands of a professional 
reader who has mastered the difficult art of holding 
her audience and who has learned to cut down bulky 
material to the required length. But this volume is 
not intended for the professional reader. I am just 
an everyday Council member myself, writing for the 
woman who has had no special training in public 
speaking, but is willing to do her share for her organ¬ 
ization’s program and is anxious to learn how to 
do it. 

The story, whenever possible, should be combined 
with musical selections, papers or reports upon cur¬ 
rent topics or books and plays. We are primarily in¬ 
terested in the story just now and must try to see that 
all other material in the program is selected in relation 
to it. A little later on we will try to find out just what 
constitutes a well-balanced program and how to as¬ 
semble it. 

The short story if properly selected should amuse as 
well as inspire and instruct the listener; but what short 
stories are really suitable for our programs and 
where will we find them? This is difficult; we must 
find the story which not only appeals to the average 
clubwoman, say, Edna Ferber’s “Gay Old Dog,” but 
a tale which is Jewish in background and theme such 
as Israel Zangwill’s “They Who Walk in Darkness.” 
I do not mean that our organizations should not form 
circles for the study of general literature; but often 
only a few members attend such study circles and the 
larger group attend only the program meetings, where 
such stories should be read as contribute something 
really Jewish, a bit of history or Biblical lore, such as 
“A Son of Pharaoh” in this volume, or an inspirational 


THE LITERARY PROGRAM 


187 


message like that of our opening tale, “The Mother 
with Nothing to Give.” For that reason the stories 
included in this collection, with the few exceptions 
which have been allowed for the sake of variety and 
humor, have been chosen not only for their appeal to 
women, but especially for their appeal to Council mem¬ 
bers and Jewish women in other organizations. 

Unfortunately there are very few suitable short 
stories; we have plenty of stories of Jewish life— 
Jewish because the characters have Jewish names and 
enjoy Jewish cooking like the delightful people in Mon¬ 
tague Glass’s stories—but many of these will not fit 
into our program. Often they hold the Jew up 
to ridicule; sometimes their point of view offends 
us; at best they may present such a superficial 
study of Jewish life that they become mislead¬ 
ing rather than inspirational. Often the story is 
too long, or it may present a life too foreign to be ap¬ 
preciated by modern American Jewesses, e. g., “The 
Talmudists,” listed among the stories by Perez in the 
Bibliography which follows. Once in a while an ex¬ 
cellent story of Jewish life appears in the current maga¬ 
zines, but who keeps a file of last year’s numbers?— 
and few of these stories ever appear between the covers 
of a book. Sometimes this lack of suitable Jewish 
program material may be supplemented by holding 
competitions among our members, especially in 
the larger cities, offering prizes for the best original 
short stories on Jewish life. Unfortunately, when this 
is done, no effort is made to preserve the prize winning 
tales which would prove so invaluable to other sections; 
for example, one of Mrs. Mary Hevesh’s poignant tales 
which won first place in a contest of the Chicago Sec- 


188 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


tion, although it appeared later in the “American He¬ 
brew” has not been sufficiently circulated to be en¬ 
joyed by the various sections throughout the country. 

Now what stories will we choose of those really 
available? In the first place the story must be short, 
not only to hold the interest of Mrs. Katz, who is anx¬ 
ious to slip out and see whether the coffee is almost 
ready for the refreshment hour, but brief enough to 
give Miss Mollie Ruben a chance to give an encore to 
her violin solo. But sometimes the story like “In the 
Rabbi’s Study” may be shortened by dropping one sec¬ 
tion. But if the story is too long it may be cut, but 
this requires great care. Do not make the mistake of 
counting sentences, cutting out a paragraph here or 
there. Decide just what part of the story will be the 
most interesting to read; then prepare a very brief 
synopsis telling what has happened in the omitted por¬ 
tions. To illustrate: take Zangwill’s story, “The Red 
Mark,” mentioned in the Bibliography. In a word 
sketch poor little Becky’s home life, stressing how dif¬ 
ficult it was for her to have perfect attendance at school. 
Be sure to quote the amusing messages the older chil¬ 
dren wrote whenever they needed Becky’s help in their 
own homes; tell how Becky’s room in school almost 
won the banner for perfect attendance; then let Zang- 
will tell as only he can the story of Becky’s adventure 
on the last day and why she wasn’t marked absent 
after all. 

Even if your story is short enough, be sure that it 
is not tiresome because it presents too many ideas or 
has too difficult a background. For it is never as 
easy to receive your story “through the ear” as 
“through the eye.” For that reason some of Zang- 


THE LITERARY PROGRAM 


189 


will’s sketches are ideal for program work, since they 
are done in broad, heavy strokes; on the other hand, 
some sketches have been deliberately omitted from the 
Bibliography because they are too delicate to be ap¬ 
preciated by any but a very small and intimate group 
of listeners. Then stories like Zangwill’s “From a 
Mattress Grave” are not suitable for groups unless 
they are fairly well acquainted with the life and works 
of Heine. This story is admirable for the armchair 
where it may be enjoyed at leisure and put aside when 
the reader has for the moment learned enough of the 
dying poet; but it contains far too many facts and 
fancies to be absorbed by women who have only a 
superficial knowledge of his many adventures and his 
many-sided philosophy. 

Now even if the story is sufficiently short and simple 
and interesting, it should, whenever possible, bring a 
certain amount of Jewish information or inspiration 
(or both!) to our members. If you look over the 
contents of this volume you will see that the stories 
are grouped roughly under four heads, stories that 
teach something about the history, holidays or cere¬ 
monials of our religion (“The Two-Edged Sword,” “A 
Succoth Table” and “Unhallowed Candles”); Jewish 
problems (“Intermarriage” and “Twenty Years After,” 
as a study in anti-Semitism); reflections of contem¬ 
porary Jewish life (“Birds of a Feather” and “Patch- 
work”); humorous sketches, which although they are 
not intrinsically Jewish, aim to be true portraiture 
(“Eight O’clock Sharp” and “Vivian Gets a Booking”). 

Notice, too, how hard I have striven for variety, for 
variety is the spice of every program. The holiday 
stories are of Biblical times and of our own day. All 


190 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


the modern stories except the symbolic Passover study, 
“Dawn through the Darkness,” are laid in America, al¬ 
though several of them deal with immigrant Jews. And 
because the average woman is more interested 
in American life and problems than studies of 
Jewish life in Europe or the Ghetto sketches which 
are most frequently used to picture the Jew in Amer¬ 
ica, the stories of American Jews attempt to show every 
section of American Jewish life (the immigrant in the 
ghetto in “Stairs”; the Jew in the small town, “A Ceme¬ 
tery Jew”; the middle-class Brooklyn Jew in “Vivian 
Gets a Booking”; the New York—and other large 
city—Jew in “Birds of a Feather”). 

In the same way I have tried to find stories of every 
type for the appended Bibliography. This list is not 
exhaustive; any well-read person can doubtlessly add 
a dozen to the ones already listed. It will be seen 
that Zangwilks stories occupy considerable space; this 
is as it should be since no other Jewish writer has writ¬ 
ten so often and so well for us English-speaking Jews; 
in his stories he touches every phase and every corner 
of Jewish life and what he touches he enriches with 
his singular charm, his deep insight into the Jewish 
soul. Unfortunately much of Perez and “Shalom 
Aleichem” is poorly translated or not translated at all; 
even at best their peculiar flavor is lost when carried 
over into English; often, when a large proportion of 
the section is familiar with Yiddish, it is a good thing 
to have a short sketch of one of these masters read in 
the original, preceded by a synopsis for the benefit of 
those with no knowledge of Yiddish. 

Such a synopsis requires preparation on the part 
of the reader, which brings us to perhaps the most im- 


THE LITERARY PROGRAM 


191 


portant requirement of our program. First find your 
story; but the most appropriate story in the world 
will fall as flat as the proverbial pancake if it is served 
from the hands of an inefficient and unprepared reader. 
Let me say it again, by an efficient reader I do not 
mean a professional elocutionist; although if you are 
fortunate enough to have one in your midst never cease 
to give thanks for her and show yourselves decently 
grateful whenever she places her talents and her time 
at your disposal. But any member, no matter how 
untrained, can read a story satisfactorily if she has a 
good clear voice—and is willing to work! 

In preparing her story, it is best for the reader to 
consider what type of story suits her personality the 
best. For example, it would be rather stupid for a 
quiet, self-possessed social worker to read “More than 
Bread,” which would lead every woman in the audience 
to comparing her to the butterfly amateur who plays at 
social service in the story. Or why should a bright 
little woman try to convey the tragedy of “Stairs” or 
“Dawn through the Darkness”? Although it is not 
absolutely necessary to have lived the life portrayed 
in your story or to sympathize with its lesson in order 
to read it effectively, for example, if a non-Jewish pro¬ 
fessional reader will help you with your program, there 
is no reason why you cannot suggest one of the listed 
stories to her, providing a Jewish program for your¬ 
selves and earning her thanks by increasing her reper¬ 
toire. Above all beware of dialect! One of my most 
painful recollections—and others suffered with me—is 
of hearing a reader, expert in Irish and French types, 
trying to impersonate a Yiddish newsboy. 

After you have picked out your story, remember 


192 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


that everyone in your audience will like to know some¬ 
thing about the life of the author. In some cases you 
will find your author’s biography in the Jewish Ency¬ 
clopedia or “Who’s Who”; however, if the author is 
still living, it is often impossible to read up about him 
and it is usually more satisfactory to write to him— 
in plenty of time!—asking him for a few personal facts 
for your sketch. It is also highly desirable to preface 
your reading with a few words to give the audience the 
necessary background and atmosphere. 

Now prepare your story. You may not be an ex¬ 
perienced reader, but you can always be a prepared 
reader; you owe the courtesy of preparation to the 
helpless author of the story you read and to your 
equally helpless audience. This may seem like flip¬ 
pant and unnecessary advice; yet I have again and 
again known professional entertainers to labor long 
and carefully over simple programs, while inexperi¬ 
enced amateurs have actually mounted the platform 
without having even glanced over the material which 
they were asked to prepare weeks before. “You’ll 
have to excuse me if I mispronounce some of the 
names; I didn’t get to look over this yet,” murmured 
a woman to her audience recently; yet she felt a little 
nettled when several women in the audience began to 
wriggle and whisper by the time she reached the sec¬ 
ond paragraph. 

But it is not enough to glance over your story an 
hour before your program—and trust to luck. As 
soon as you decide upon your story, read it aloud, first 
to time yourself and know how much cutting, if any, 
is needed, then for cadences and to make sure that you 
will not stumble over foreign or unfamiliar words. 


THE LITERARY PROGRAM 


193 


Read your selection over as many times as necessary 
until you are ready to read it to a few or even to one 
listener. This will cure you of any possible self-con¬ 
sciousness and if your listeners are good critics as well 
as good friends they may be able to give you more 
than one valuable reaction or bit of advice. 

Section 2: How to Plan the Program 

Now that we have a perfect story perfectly pre- 
pared(!), let us fit it into our perfect program. I 
believe the ideal literary program should not last over 
an hour, which means that after a twenty-minute story 
plus a five-minute preface, you will have about thirty- 
five minutes left. Suppose you decide to have a Zang- 
will program and choose one of his short stories men¬ 
tioned in the Bibliography, say, “The Keeper of Con¬ 
science,” a story of mingled pathos and humor. Be¬ 
cause of your author’s prominence you may choose to 
have a more elaborate biography presented by some 
other member than the reader, instead of asking her 
to give the few introductory biographical facts before 
the story is read. You might also care to have some 
one give an intimate personal view of the author. If 
you are fortunate enough to have in your section any 
one who has met Mr. Zangwill on one of his visits to 
America, she should be persuaded to give as informal 
a paper as possible; if not, carefully culled paragraphs 
from one of the many interviews published in the Jew¬ 
ish and secular papers during his visit to our country. 
If you wish music it would be charming to use one or 
two of the songs which Mr. Zangwill has translated 
from the Hebrew; these may be found in the Union 


194 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


Hymnal. Or, since the story read portrays English 
life some characteristically English folk songs might be 
substituted. If a recitation and instrumental music 
are preferred, you might substitute Zangwill’s well- 
known poem, “The Hebrew’s Friday Night.” 

Or, suppose you have already had a detailed biog¬ 
raphy of Zangwill and do not care for the music I have 
suggested. Then you might prefer to use his story 
of the immigrant, “The Promised Land,” Schauffler’s 
poem on immigration, “Scum o’ the Earth” or the wel¬ 
come to all newcomers written by our own Emma 
Lazarus for the base of the Statue of Liberty, “The 
New Colossus.” Then there might follow a discussion 
of immigration, past and present restriction, what the 
Council has done and hopes to do for the immigrant, 
etc. 

If you make these discussions fit into your program 
properly they will perhaps prove the most valuable 
feature of the year’s work. The story will cease to 
be a mere story as soon as it is tied up with some liv¬ 
ing, vital problem of today. Above all, it gives every 
member of the audience a chance to take part in the 
program. Often a less serious discussion is almost as 
valuable. A certain group, after hearing a play of 
Jewish life, gave the members a real “quiz” to learn 
how many understood the meaning of the Yiddish 
words used in the text; another group, after listening 
to a ceremonial holiday story, enjoyed an informal dis¬ 
cussion of holiday observances in the home for Purim; 
one recalled an old-fashioned Purim spiel in which she 
had acted as a child; a very old lady recalled a certain 
Erev Purim when she had heard the Megilla read in 
a European schul; several very different recipes for 


THE LITERARY PROGRAM 


195 


homon taschen were offered. The members were all 
much more interested than if they had listened to an 
elaborate paper on “Purim Customs” and several who 
could never have been induced to mount the platform 
to deliver such a lecture were delighted to find that 
they, too, could contribute something to the Council 
program. 

Having planned one perfect program, let us make up 
our minds to have one every month from October to 
May. The program above is only suggestive, since 
any member should be able to work out one more 
suitable for local conditions; your plan for your 
year’s program must also fit your local needs. And 
just as you try to make your monthly program a beau¬ 
tifully balanced, varied product, you will try to make 
your year’s program a perfect whole, with plenty of 
variety, of course, yet giving the members a fine com¬ 
plete impression to take away with them after the last 
meeting of the season is over. 

As I said before, I have tried to give as much vari¬ 
ety as possible in this volume, seeking to present every 
phase of Jewish life, picturing both the dark and the 
sunny side, including stories for the holidays which 
our organizations may celebrate through the year. Rosh 
Hashonah and Yom Kippur are omitted since these 
holy days are observed rather in the synagogue than 
in the meeting; Tisha B’ab falls in the summer sea¬ 
son; some of the minor fast and feast days have been 
omitted although one story has been included for Lag 
R’omer; this will be found especially suitable if we 
wish to give a spring celebration and tactfully choose 
the May Day of the Jewish people. 

Now if you want only three story programs during 


196 


THE TOWER OF DAVID 


the year I suggest you use three very different types 
of story, one holiday, one modern problem story, one 
humorous or satiric. If you wish a whole year of story 
programs, I suggest that you alternate the material in 
this book with the tales suggested in the Bibliography 
or others you believe more suitable for your own audi¬ 
ence. My excessive modesty which I find painful at 
times forbids me to base the year’s outline upon the 
material in this volume; yet if you were cast on a de¬ 
serted island with only this book and the members 
of your section saved from the wreck, and you wanted 
to give a year’s program it ought to run something 
like this: 

Succoth or Sabbath: 

“A Succoth Table” or “Unhallowed Candles” 
Farce: 

“Eight O’clock Sharp!” or “Vivian Gets a Book¬ 
ing” 

Russian Background: 

“Stairs,” or if not used for Passover, “Dawn 
Through the Darkness” 

Chanukah or Purim: 

“The Two-Edged Sword” or “A Day in Shushan” 
Satire: 

“Birds of a Feather” or “A Cemetery Jew” 
Problem: 

“Intermarriage” or “In the Rabbi’s Study” or 
“Twenty Years After” 

Special Woman’s Problem or Passover: 

“The Mother with Nothing to Give” or “A Son of 
Pharaoh” 

Lag B’omer or Shabuoth: 


THE LITERARY PROGRAM 197 

“The Return of Akiba” or “A Mother of Beth¬ 
lehem” 

(If Shabuoth occurs in May, this Shabuoth 
story would be appropriate for a Mother’s 
Day program; or you might use “The Mother 
with Nothing to Give.”) 

Section 3: Model Programs 

I have worked out for you what I consider an ade¬ 
quate and entertaining Zangwill program, and sug¬ 
gested how to alternate it. The three programs which 
follow (holiday, modern problem, humorous or sa¬ 
tiric) I have already mentioned as the best types to 
choose if only three story programs are given, are out¬ 
lined below, again, merely as suggestions for the mem¬ 
ber who will adapt them to her own need. 

I. Holiday Purim 

Story: A Day in Shushan (Biblical) 
or 

A Star—for a Night (modern) 

Purim Songs or Cycle of Purim Recitations 
Purim Plays: (This may be a short paper on 
the growth of the Purim spiel, but it would be 
highly amusing if it could include reminis - 
cences, chiefly humorous , of various amateur 
Purim plays the speaker had witnessed and 
produced) 

II. Modern Problem 

Talk: The Delinquent Girl 
or 

The Big Sister Movement 


198 THE TOWER OF DAVID 

Story: Patchwork 

Discussion by members: How does the Council 
of Jewish Women face this problem? 

III. Humorous or Satiric 
Music 

Story: More than Bread 
Report: The Jew in the Moving Picture. 
(This may be a short paper on Jewish con¬ 
tributions to the Moving Picture, directors, 
sce?iario writers, actors; or it might be a re¬ 
port on recent pictures on Jewish themes) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

{Note: This bibliography of stories and verses for the 
holidays and general programs is in no sense complete, 
but attempts to be merely suggestive. It has been com¬ 
piled consistent with the principles of the ideal story 
for platform work, as set forth in the previous pages; 
for that reason many sketches of great beauty and charm, 
but too delicate for large groups, have been deliberately 
omitted. Nor is mention made of the many stories of 
Jewish interest which are appearing in the current maga¬ 
zines such as the tales of Bruno Lessing, Montague Glass, 
Fannie Hurst, Anzia Yezierka and others, since until they 
appear in book form they are often unavailable to the 
reader. In this connection one must mention the Menorah 
Journal and the Bnai Brith News , two magazines which 
often print Jewish stories and verses of real merit, and the 
numerous weekly Jewish periodicals.) 

Stories 

Hurst, Fannie, “Humoresque,” a volume of short stories 
beginning with the best known and most Jewish, 
“Humoresque,” and containing other stories with 
Jewish types; sprightly and interesting, but may need 
cutting. 

“Lummox,” the section, “Seven Candles” being one 
of the most Jewish and appealing incidents of this 
author; will need cutting. 

Isaacs, Abram S., “Stories from the Rabbis,” charmingly 
told versions of the old Jewish legends which should 
i99 


200 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


prove attractive to an audience who is weary of 
modern material; practically the only collection suit¬ 
able for adults. 

“Under the Sabbath Lamp,” a group of modern 
stories, most of them sermonic in tone. 

“Before Dawn” ( Succoth—should be cut). 

Levinger, Elma Ehrlich, “In Many Lands,” a group of 
stories written for adolescents, several of which would 
be suitable for adult audiences: 

“The Menorah of Remembrance” (Chanukah). 
“The Purim Players” (Purim). 

“A Rose for Beauty” ( Shabuoth ). 

“The New Land,” a group of similar stories with an 
American background. 

“The Princess of Philadelphia” may be used on a 
program devoted to “Famous Jewish Women,” or in 
connection with papers on American literature, since 
Washington Irving is a leading character in the 
story. 

“A Present for Mr. Lincoln” ( Lincoln’s Birthday). 

Perez, Isaac Loeb, “Stories and Pictures,” a collection of 
stories of European Jewish life by possibly the foremost 
Yiddish writer of his generation; translated by Helena 
Frank; remarkable atmosphere and feeling; many of 
them of ideal length for platform work. 

“If not Higher” (Fall Holy Days—or general). 
“Domestic Happiness” (general). 

“The New Tune” (Yom Kippur). 

“The Seventh Candle of Blessing” (Sabbath). 
“What is the Soul” (general—must be cut). 
“Bontzye Zweig” (perhaps his best known story to 
the English reader; may need a little cutting; an 
exquisite satire). 

“Kabbalists” (general—an unusual background for 
American-born readers). 

“The Fast” (general). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


201 


“Shalom Aleichem,” “Jewish Children,” translated by 
Hannah Berman; sketches of European life by the 
famous Yiddish humorist; unfortunately they lose in 
translation and many of them by reason of their ma¬ 
terial will not appeal to Council audiences. 

“Elijah the Prophet” {Passover). 

“Three Little Heads” (Shabuoth). 

“Esther” {Purim). 

“On the Fiddle” {general). 

Wolfenstein, Martha, “Idylls of the Gass,” “A Sinner 
and Other Tales,” two delightful collections of Old 
World stories, humorous and pathetic. 

Yezierska, Anzia, “Children of Loneliness,” “Fat of the 
Land.” 

These two collections of short stories are perhaps 
the most vivid and truthful of all the many sketches of 
the immigrant Jew in America; none are named here 
as the reader will find practically every tale worthy 
of a place in her repertoire. “Fat of the Land,” the 
tragedy between the generations, was awarded the 
distinction of “the best American short story of the 
year,” by O’Brien. 

“Yiddish Tales,” Translated by Helena Frank; possibly 
the best collection we have in English of the short 
stories of the Yiddish writers treating of the life of the 
Ghetto and the immigrant Jew. Beautifully trans¬ 
lated and treating of almost every phase of modern 
Jewish life. 

Zangwill, Israel, Impossible to give even a hint of the 
wealth of material furnished by this Prince of Jewish 
Story Writers, who has written with equal art of the 
ancient and the modern Jew, and whose stories range 
from the broadly comic to the tragic. 

“Children of the Ghetto”; extracts, if carefully cut, 
may be read such as the story of “The Hymans’ 
Honeymoon” and the story of Hannah’s renuncia- 


202 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


tion, which would be especially appropriate for a 
Passover program. 

“The King of Schnorrers,” an uproarious fantasy 
of English life; carefully cut chapters may be read, 
such as Chapter II, “Showing how the King 
reigned,” or Chapter VI, “Showing how the King 
enriched the Synagogue.” 

In the same volume two studies of Ghetto life, one 
humorous, one tragic, and both in need of cutting 
if read aloud: 

“A Rose of the Ghetto.” 

“Flutter Duck.” 

“Ghetto Comedies,” a collection of short stories: 
“The Sabbath Question in Sudminster” ( humorous, 
Sabbath or general program, must be cut con¬ 
siderably). 

“The Red Mark” ( mingled humor and pathos; 
for a general program). 

“Elijah’s Goblet” ( Passover program, a thrilling 
tale of a threatened pogrom). 

“Ghetto Tragedies,” a collection of short stories: 
“They Who Walk in Darkness” {general). 

“The Promised Land” {general—may be used 
as feature of program devoted to study of im¬ 
migrant girl). 

“The Keeper of Conscience” ( general; must be 
liberally cut). 

“Dreamers of the Ghetto,” a collection of tales 
which might be successfully combined with a num¬ 
ber of programs on Jewish history and literature; if 
used separately, the following should prove most 
acceptable: 

“Joseph the Dreamer” {general). 

“The Turkish Messiah” {general—much cutting). 
“Chad Gadya” {Passover). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


203 


Verse 

“Standard Book of Jewish Verse,” Compiled by Joseph 
Friedlander; best of Jewish verse collections, but 
needs to be brought up to date. 

“Selections for Home and School,” Marion L. Misch, a 
smaller but excellent collection. 

“Hebrew Anthology,” George Alexander Kohut, an an¬ 
thology in two volumes; most selections are too diffi¬ 
cult, but the dramatic portions of the second volume 
should be effective with judicious cutting. 

“Poems for Young Judeans,” Selected and published by 
Young Judea; contain more modern verse than other 
anthologies but little general material; highly na¬ 
tionalistic in tone. 

“Around the Year with the Jewish Child,” Jessie Sampter; 
a group of charming verses for the various holy days 
of the Jew; especially fine for holiday programs if 
recited by young children. 

“Jewish Festivals in the Religious School,” Elma Ehrlich 
Levinger, a number of holiday verses from various 
sources and a few for general occasions, suitable for 
young children and adolescents, but some may be read 
or recited by adults. 

The End 





































